


this song is for you

by PhantomFlutist



Series: Fic Request February 2018 [2]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bad Jokes, But mostly fluff, Coma, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Pop stars, Poverty, Romantic Soulmates, all the soulmates, briefly, if you have no idea what's going on here that makes two of us, it's fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 14:56:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13977501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomFlutist/pseuds/PhantomFlutist
Summary: Happiness is a lie the government sells you to keep you complacent. Or that's what Hakyeon told himself, because the alternative was admitting that he was probably never going to have happiness of his own. Not with how his life had been so far, not with who his soulmate was.Taekwoon looked around himself and saw a sea of happy people and wondered why he wasn't one of them. He had everything a person could ever want...except that it seemed like he didn't have a soulmate, and that hurt more than any of the rest of it would have.It was too bad the two of them couldn't just meet in the middle.





	this song is for you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crazyassfemale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazyassfemale/gifts).



> Hi VIXX fandom, I'm back! Sorry it's been so long.
> 
> For Fic Request February: the gorgeous and wonderful Reney has requested 'Neo soulmates AU'. I took that very vague prompt and...this happened. Hopefully this is what you wanted, because it's way longer than I meant for it to be so in this case all sales are final. No take-backs. Or something.
> 
> It's...not that angsty. I don't think. Beta R said that it was too sweet for her and she only got through it because of my bad jokes, so I'm gonna take that as a sign that it's not nearly as dark as my usual. Enjoy!

 

Cha Hakyeon saw color for the first time at age twenty-four.

The way it worked, for reasons that no one understood fully, was that every person in the whole world was born colorblind. And then, at some point, you would see a person who made your world explode in a bright prism of colors, the whole spectrum all around you like you had never experienced before. That person who made your world bright was your perfect match, the person whose soul most closely resonated with yours.

For Hakyeon, it was the day he saw a grainy YouTube video of Jung Taekwoon for the first time that his whole life changed.

And Taekwoon would never even know that he existed. He was a pop star, hugely famous before Hakyeon even knew about him. He’d heard Taekwoon’s songs on the radio a hundred times and suffered through people singing them off-key in the aisles of the Walmart where he worked and he’d even known Taekwoon’s name.

He didn’t know whether he was glad he’d clicked that youtube link when Jaehwan sent it to him or angry that now he _knew_ that Taekwoon was his soulmate and couldn’t do a damned thing about it.

It wasn’t like he could just call Taekwoon up and say, “Hey, this is going to sound crazy, but you’re my soulmate.” He probably had a dozen girls say that to him every day.

Hakyeon also couldn’t exactly up and run across the country to go see Taekwoon in person. He couldn’t afford to miss days of work and he _definitely_ couldn’t afford to road-trip to Los Angeles or wherever it was that Taekwoon lived.

“It’s gonna be okay, dude,” Hongbin tried to tell him. “The universe has a way of working these things out.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Hakyeon told him, and buried himself a little deeper in his blanket cocoon. “The internet is full of missed connections and stories of people who just never found their soulmate at all or who saw in color for the first time only to discover that their soulmate was still colorblind or...whatever.”

Hongbin sighed at him and turned back to his laptop. As the colors flashed across his face he said, “Fine. Just abandon all hope now.”

Hakyeon threw a pillow at him and took grim satisfaction in the way Hongbin swore when the red death screen took over his game. “Happiness is a lie that the government sells you to keep you complacent, Hongbin.”

“Whatever, man,” Hongbin snorted, throwing the pillow back so it hit Hakyeon directly in the face and returning to his game like he didn’t care at all about Hakyeon’s problem.

...which, like, he _didn’t_ , but he could at least pretend. That was what friends _did_.

–

Jung Taekwoon was colorblind. It was this stupid paradox too, because on the one hand it was embarrassing that he was twenty-four and hadn’t found his soulmate yet. But on the other, it made him marketable because then his fans felt like they still had a chance.

Taekwoon mostly acted like he didn’t care that much either way. In interviews when he was asked about it he shrugged and deferred and made it clear that he wasn’t interested in discussing it.

In reality, it _hurt_.

Probably because his parents met at age four and didn’t even know what being soulmates meant until they were almost in high school, but it didn’t matter because they were already inseparable anyway. Maybe because he watched his sisters get paired off one by one with people who were their _best friends forever_ and he was jealous of that.

All he wanted was to have someone who understood him the way that his family didn’t, the way the kids he went to school with didn’t. He grew up watching other people find love and friendship and everything in between and he kept wondering where in the hell his happiness was.

“I’m thinking a concert tour after the album release,” Shinwoo told him. “Your name will be hot and your fans will jump at the chance to see you live.”

Taekwoon waved a hand, uploaded the selfie of him with his morning Starbucks to Instagram with the caption ‘Coffee’ and nothing else, and said, “Whatever you think is best.”

Shinwoo gave the long-suffering sigh of an agent who had been forced to deal with a pop star’s shit for one year too long. “You could at least pretend to care,” he said. “But since you don’t, I’ll just decide the dates and locations myself, shall I? Should I write your songs for you too?”

“No, I’ll get to it,” Taekwoon insisted. He’d spent the last three days in the studio doing...basically nothing. But Shinwoo didn’t need to know that.

“Will you just call Wonshik and ask him for help already? That’s literally what he does,” Shinwoo said, apparently seeing right through him. He really had been Taekwoon’s agent for far too long.

Taekwoon just shrugged and asked, “Can I go now?”

With a sigh, Shinwoo waved him out of his office, and Taekwoon returned to the studio for more long hours of no inspiration and a deepening spiral of self-doubt.

–

Jaehwan was a huge fan of Jung Taekwoon. Jaehwan was also Hakyeon’s best friend from college, so Hakyeon heard about Taekwoon pretty much constantly.

“He uploaded another Starbucks selfie to Instagram,” was a pretty common greeting for Jaehwan, who really was just trying to update Hakyeon on his soulmate’s condition.

“That’s the third time this week,” Hakyeon said, yanking maybe a bit fiercely to open the cardboard box full of shampoo bottles that he was holding. It was one in the morning and he was stocking the shampoo aisle at Walmart. He was working nights because of the pay premium. There was no money in _his_ budget for Starbucks.

Jaehwan snorted. “No need to be bitter about it,” he said. “If it bothers you so much, just find a way to meet him so he’ll realize you’re soulmates and then he can be your sugar daddy.”

Hakyeon slid the last bottle of shampoo onto the shelf and then lobbed the empty box at Jaehwan’s head. “I don’t need a sugar daddy. I make twelve-fifty an hour and I only share my apartment with one other person. I’m living in the lap of luxury.”

“Your apartment is probably infested with toxic mold and you’re behind on most of your bills,” Jaehwan reminded him. He picked up the box and broke it down for Hakyeon, shoving its flattened corpse into the cart with the others.

“Thanks,” Hakyeon said, voice dripping with sarcasm, “I needed the reminder.”

Jaehwan claimed a box of conditioner for himself and started stocking Garnier Fructis. “I’m just looking out for you, man,” he said. “Jung Taekwoon could be the answer to all of your problems.”

“I’m a grown man,” Hakyeon told him. He started moving all of the bottles that Jaehwan had just stocked to the correct spot. “And you don’t work here.”

“Fine!” Jaehwan screeched. “See if I help you again!”

He stormed off down the aisle, sticking his tongue out at Hakyeon and making fart noises before he disappeared around the corner.

Hakyeon just went back to work like nothing had happened. It wasn’t worth worrying about; tomorrow Jaehwan would break into his apartment and try to convince him to have tequila shots for breakfast and Hakyeon would talk him down the way he always did and then probably make pancakes or something.

–

Wonshik slammed his way into the studio and dropped a bag of Chinese takeout in Taekwoon’s lap. “Eat and then we’re gonna work on your song,” he grunted.

Taekwoon gave him an offended glare, but he knew that it wouldn’t fool Wonshik. They’d been friends for too long. Wonshik knew that Taekwoon could never be mad at a person who supplied him with sustenance.

“There’s no song to work on,” he said, ripping open a container of twice cooked pork and digging in with the crappy disposable wooden chopsticks the restaurant had thoughtfully supplied.

Wonshik stopped halfway through booting up the equipment. “You haven’t even started?”

Taekwoon shook his head in lieu of reply, both cheeks stuffed with food and chewing rigorously. He’d rather not talk about the fact that he was constantly expected to write love songs even though he had never _actually_ been in love.

“We’ve talked about this,” Wonshik said. He talked over Taekwoon as he attempted to interrupt. “I _know_ that you feel like your fans expect a certain thing from you. Your debut album was all teeny-bopper friendly and your first hit song was about having a crush on someone you didn’t have the courage to talk to, blah, blah, blah. I get it.”

Taekwoon swallowed properly and asked, “Then why are we having this conversation again?”

Wonshik heaved a heavy sigh and slumped forward in his chair. He set his elbows on his thighs and regarded Taekwoon seriously. “If you could write a song about anything – fucking anything at all, without worrying about your fans or the public or whatever, what would you write about?”

Taekwoon stuffed his mouth full of pork again to give himself time to think about his answer. Finally, he said, “Soulmates. I’d write a song about how much it sucks to feel like you’re the only person in the world who doesn’t have one.”

“So write it,” Wonshik told him. “Stop worrying about everyone else and just write from the heart.”

Taekwoon felt a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth and couldn’t help but say, “Aw, you big softie.”

Wonshik growled playfully at him. “You tell anyone and I’ll have to kill you.”

“Sure,” Taekwoon said agreeably. He knew Wonshik wasn’t good for it. Even if he were, he’d never hurt Taekwoon. He liked him too much.

–

Hakyeon’s bedroom door slammed open around mid-morning and Jaehwan screeched, “You’ll never believe what just happened!” while tripping across the laundry-strewn floor.

Hakyeon groaned and didn’t bother to remove his sleep mask. He’d only gotten home from work at eight and it was too damn early for this shit.

Jaehwan flopped onto the bed, half on top of Hakyeon. “It’s dark in here,” he complained.

“That’s the point,” Hakyeon muttered, thinking murderous thoughts. There was a reason that he’d taped a blanket over the window. He worked the night shift and he needed to get some fucking sleep.

“Anyway,” Jaehwan said, “that’s not why I’m here.”

“Why _are_ you here?” Hakyeon asked. He kicked feebly at what he hoped was Jaehwan’s balls. There was little reaction, so he guessed that it was actually a wadded-up shirt.

Jaehwan paused, presumably for dramatic effect even though Hakyeon couldn’t see him, and declared, “He’s coming here.”

Hakyeon mumbled, “Who’s coming here?” He idly wondered how long it would take Jaehwan to notice if he fell back asleep while he was talking.

Leaning close enough that Hakyeon could feel his breath hot on his ear, Jaehwan whispered, “Jung Taekwoon.”

Hakyeon sat up like a shot, knocking his head against Jaehwan’s and tearing off his eye mask even as he shouted in pain. “What do you mean, he’s coming here? How?” He took hold of Jaehwan’s head, squeezing it between his palms until Jaehwan whined, and demanded, “What did you do?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” Jaehwan wailed. “He’s coming for a concert, you weirdo.”

All at once, Hakyeon deflated. He let himself flop back onto his pillow and muttered, “You could have led with that.”

“I didn’t realize you would assume I meant that he was coming to your apartment somehow, magically,” Jaehwan said. He patted Hakyeon’s knee. “But I understand that you’re under a lot of stress right now.”

“Whose fault is that?” Hakyeon asked. But honestly he knew that Jaehwan meant well. They’d been friends for fucking ever. There was once a time that Hakyeon was nearly as exuberant as Jaehwan. It was times like this that he realized just how much everything that had happened had sapped out of him. It wasn’t just working hard and constantly having too many bills. He was literally less fun than he used to be.

Jaehwan crossed his legs and started very seriously examining his nails. “I think we should go,” he said.

Hakyeon shook his head, hair mussing against the pillow. “I don’t have any fucking money, man.”

“Save up. The concert isn’t until March and tickets haven’t even gone on sale yet,” Jaehwan said. And while it was nice of him to attempt to give Hakyeon hope, that just wasn’t going to cut it.

“I literally have fifty bucks a month in my food budget,” he reminded Jaehwan. It was not the first time. “Everything I earn is going towards my debt and I’m thinking about getting a second job.”

Jaehwan sighed. He tilted his head to one side and then the other. He sighed again. Finally, he asked, “Have you looked at jobs in your field lately?”

Hakyeon rolled his head to the side to regard Jaehwan straight on. “I was a history major. There are no jobs in my field. Basically I have a piece of paper that means exactly nothing.”

“There’s gotta be _something_ you can do though,” Jaehwan tried to insist. “I’m not getting paid a ton but at least I have benefits, you know?”

Hakyeon snorted. “If I’m lucky, maybe in a year or two they’ll promote me to senior stockboy.” He closed his eyes when Jaehwan didn’t laugh at his joke. “Seriously though. I’ve looked. There are no positions in town and even if I could move elsewhere I’d have to get a really good job to even consider it. I’m stuck.”

“Maybe,” Jaehwan said haltingly, as he laid down next to Hakyeon, “you should become a stripper.”

Hakyeon chuckled. “Maybe,” he agreed. He felt Jaehwan shift a little closer and murmured, “Stay?”

Apparently, Jaehwan took that as the invitation he’d been waiting for. He threw an arm and a leg over Hakyeon’s body and cuddled him close. “Gladly,” he said. “Hongbin is at my apartment with Sanghyuk and they’re being insufferable.”

“Shh,” Hakyeon shushed, mushing his fingers somewhere in the vicinity of Jaehwan’s mouth. “Sleep now.”

Fortunately for the integrity of his balls, Jaehwan followed his advice and shut up.

–

Shinwoo sat very still, headphones on and eyes closed, for the entire three minutes and thirty-nine seconds that the demo track lasted. When it ended, he opened his eyes slowly and tugged the headphones down around his neck and watched Taekwoon very, very quietly for a long time.

Eventually, he said, “I think this is the best song you’ve ever written.”

Taekwoon wrung his hands together, inside his sweatshirt pocket where Shinwoo couldn’t see. “It’s not too depressing?”

“Oh, it’s definitely depressing,” Shinwoo agreed. When he saw the way it made Taekwoon’s face fall he added, “It’s a good thing. No one can be happy all the time. This song is sad but it feels...true. Like you’re actually writing what you know instead of what people want to hear. Like you’re giving us all a glimpse of what you’re really like. Your fans will eat it up.”

“Oh,” Taekwoon said, and started to twirl one of his rings around and around his thumb. “You’re sure?”

Shinwoo patted his shoulder. “I’m sure, Taekwoon. This is good work. Lets get it finalized and on the album, okay?”

Taekwoon nodded and tried not to feel like he was shaking apart with anxiety. He’d never written anything that felt so important to him before. This song was _everything_ and he didn’t even know how to articulate that.

“I want to do a version with only the piano accompaniment,” he said. He tried to tell Shinwoo with his eyes just how important this was to him.

Shinwoo just shrugged. “The album could use a little padding,” he said. “We want it to sell well, right?”

Taekwoon agreed, “Right,” and privately thought that he didn’t really care how well the album sold.

–

“We try to have them out by nine AM,” the Newspaper employee told Hakyeon very seriously. “Can you commit to that?”

Hakyeon did some mental math. If the route took him an hour to walk like she said, and he got off work at seven like he should, then he’d have plenty of time. Theoretically. “I can,” he said, more confidently than he felt.

And just like that, she let him sign the paperwork and he became a newspaper carrier. Once he was on the bus stop bench a few blocks away he leaned his head in his hands and muttered, “I hate my fucking life.”

The damned newspaper thing was only going to make him maybe a few hundred bucks more a month, but that was a few hundred bucks that could keep him from going straight into the hole. It meant he’d be even more exhausted than he already was, but hey, it was worth it, right? He might be able to knock a couple months off his debt and finish paying it off about a week before he turned eighty.

The bus came and Hakyeon got on. It was packed because it was five o’clock and everyone was starting to head home from work, but he snagged himself a seat way in the back next to the window and put his headphones in.

Taekwoon’s voice filled his ears and Hakyeon felt himself relax so intensely he felt like people had to have noticed. It had been a good decision, he decided, to have borrowed and ripped mp3s of all of Jaehwan’s CDs so he could put them on his phone. He might never get the chance to meet his soulmate face to face, but at least he had Taekwoon’s songs to make everything just a little bit easier to deal with.

He pretended he didn’t see the dirty look he got from a forty-something man who got on the bus wearing khaki pants, a yellow button-front, and a camo tie. Let some other poor millennial give up their seat for that walking fashion disaster; Hakyeon didn’t feel like it.

Instead he leaned against the window and let himself forget that he had laundry waiting to be done at home, that he and Hongbin hadn’t washed the dishes in nearly a week, and that he had to go in to work in just a few hours. For just a few minutes, he let himself imagine what it might be like if the universe was just a little bit kinder, if he’d found Taekwoon in a normal way, if they’d (maybe) fallen in love.

Having a soulmate sucked.

–

Not having a soulmate sucked.

“Let’s do that part again,” Taekwoon said, looking at Wonshik on the other side of the recording booth’s window.

He saw Wonshik visibly sigh and reach for the microphone button. “You’ve done it fourteen times, dude.”

“Just once more,” Taekwoon insisted. He stared Wonshik down until he sighed again and the music started up.

Not having a soulmate sucked. He felt incomplete, wrong somehow, being all alone. He watched other people with their soulmates, saw the light in their eyes, and wondered why he didn’t have that. Why he didn’t get his happy ending. Life wasn’t a fairytale, and it wasn’t anything like what you saw on TV, and most of the time he just felt broken. Like there was a flaw in him that would cause him to be alone forever.

When he stopped and looked up, Wonshik was rubbing at his eyes. It took him a second to realize that Taekwoon was finished and stop the recording. “That was fantastic, Taekwoon,” he said over the mic. “Are we good here?”

Taekwoon nodded slowly, tugging the headphones off his ears. “Yeah, we’re good.”

When he stepped out of the booth, Wonshik pulled him in for a hug and told him, “This song is gonna top all the charts.”

Taekwoon made a disbelieving noise. “Right, sure,” he muttered.

“No, really,” Wonshik said. He stepped back and patted both Taekwoon’s shoulders. “It’s amazing, Taekwoon. Best work you’ve ever done.”

Taekwoon believed him. He felt like it had taken everything in him to write this song. He was scrubbed raw inside and aching with relief and maybe he didn’t feel any more understood but he was hoping, with the release of the album, that he would.

He hoped that maybe a few other lonely people would listen to it and find comfort. That was what he’d always wanted to do with his music, was connect with people. He couldn’t do it by talking, usually. He was awkward and quiet and didn’t interact with other humans easily. But with music he could express himself in a way that he couldn’t face to face.

He desperately hoped that the song, the whole album, would go over well. Not because he needed the sales – just because, for the first time since he got big, he felt like he was writing music that meant something.

It had to mean something.

–

“Wait, for real? I thought you were joking, dude,” Hongbin said. He was buttoning the cuffs of his respectable (if cheap) button-front shirt.

Hakyeon was on the living room floor, carefully rolling newspapers and shoving them into little bags only to watch them unroll themselves until they were just folded in half. Were they supposed to look like that? He felt like he was doing it wrong. “I need the money, Lee Hongbin,” Hakyeon told him waspishly.

Hongbin didn’t understand. He was making a comfortable sixteen bucks an hour to answer phones and ask people if they’d tried turning their computer off and on again, and he had benefits and basically no debt. He didn’t have to worry about paying for healthcare or drowning beneath student loans. “I could ask my boss about available positions again if you want,” he offered anyway, like a good friend.

“Thanks, but I don’t know anything about tech support or software development. I don’t think your company wants me,” Hakyeon said, not for the first time. A paper started to unroll before he could get it into the bag and he let it flop sadly to the floor. There had to be an easier way to do this.

Hongbin shrugged. “Just trying to help, man. I hate seeing you like this.”

“Aw, Bin,” Hakyeon said, fluttering his eyelashes up at Hongbin. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“Shut up,” Hongbin mumbled. He socked Hakyeon in the shoulder and then crouched down on the floor next to him and reached for the errant newspaper. “Here, just fold them in half twice and shove them in the bag. It’s easier that way.”

Hakyeon watched Hongbin bag all of his papers in about three seconds and muttered, “Where did you learn that?”

“Had a route in high school. ‘S how I bought my first car,” he said, shoving all the papers in Hakyeon’s brand-new delivery bag. He picked it up as they both stood and slung it carefully over Hakyeon’s shoulder. It weighed about a million pounds. “Make sure you switch sides every once in a while or you’ll kill your back,” he added wisely.

“Thanks,” Hakyeon said.

Hongbin shrugged again. “Not a big deal.” He jangled his car keys. “I’ll drop you off at the beginning of your route?”

It was only a few blocks, but Hakyeon picked up his phone and his delivery roster and said wearily, “Yes, please. You’re the best roommate ever.”

“Whatever,” Hongbin mumbled, but he had a smile on his face.

It turned out that delivering papers was not all that difficult. Time-consuming, maybe, but not hard, and he saw some excited dogs along the way and greeted an old lady who was out drinking coffee and smoking on her three-seasons porch, and she asked his name and practiced pronouncing it until she got it right and promised that she would remember him when he came by again.

It took him about an hour and a half, but the last paper was out at nine on the dot and he trudged back home to fall into bed until he had to get up again and start over.

–

“You ready?” Wonshik asked. They were in the living room of Taekwoon’s penthouse, laptop on the coffee table, waiting for the album to be released on itunes. It was something they’d done together back when Taekwoon was a new singer, Wonshik still a rookie sound designer just learning the ropes. It was tradition now to watch the album go up and see the downloads come pouring in.

Taekwoon shook his head and clutched his wineglass a little tighter. It was his second, and he didn’t feel nearly drunk enough for this yet. “I need a cigarette,” he muttered.

Wonshik shook a disapproving finger at him. “You quit years ago,” he reminded. “Don’t ruin your voice for this. Your fans are gonna love it.”

Taekwoon hoped they would. A few weeks ago, while he was writing and recording, it was all about the music. But suddenly the response was everything. He needed it to go over well. He needed people to be as emotional listening to his song as he had been writing it.

Midnight hit, Wonshik refreshed the page, and there it was. The album was available for download, Taekwoon’s face plastered all over it, his looks selling almost as many copies as his voice did, much as that vexed him.

Taekwoon drained his glass of wine and poured himself another as the numbers steadily climbed. In just minutes they’d sold thousands of copies. He knew there were close to a million pre-orders on the physical album already, but this was the moment of truth. This was people actually _listening_ to the music.

“They love it,” Wonshik said, scrolling casually through the comments that were already starting to pour in. “I’ve never seen so many crying emojis before in my life.”

That was questionable, as Wonshik regularly sent texts made up entirely of emojis. But Taekwoon didn’t say anything. He drank his wine and he watched the numbers and he listened desperately as Wonshik started reading the good comments out loud.

People liked his song. He’d bared his soul for the consumption of the general public and he might actually fucking survive it.

–

Hakyeon had never been so glad to have a night off. He was just lucky that it happened to coincide with the night when Taekwoon’s album was being released.

Jaehwan refreshed the itunes page yet again. They were curled up on the couch in Hakyeon’s living room, wearing pajamas and sharing a three-dollar bottle of wine. Hongbin had preemptively gone to spend the night at Jaehwan and Sanghyuk’s apartment; he knew all too well that once the album dropped they weren’t likely to be very quiet.

“Oh my god, where is it?” Jaehwan whined, flopping back against the sofa dramatically.

Hakyeon snorted. “It’s not midnight yet. Chill out.”

Jaehwan side-eyed him. “Don’t pretend you’re not just as excited about this as I am,” he said, poking Hakyeon in the ribs.

“Fuck you, I am excited,” Hakyeon said. “Doesn’t mean I have to be irrational about it.”

Jaehwan cackled. “You’ve seen me irrational,” he said, and then refreshed the page again.

And there it was, Taekwoon’s gorgeous face all over it and the album available for download, and Jaehwan couldn’t have clicked the button fast enough.

The first strains of the title song were...unreal. Hakyeon nearly spilled wine all over himself, he slumped back into the couch so fast. A shiver went through his whole body at the sound of Taekwoon’s gentle voice and he just started crying before he even understood what the song was about.

The world fell away and for that moment there was nothing but Taekwoon’s music. It felt almost like he was in the room with Hakyeon, like he was standing there singing to Hakyeon and no one else.

He sounded so broken. There was all this desperation in the song, all this desire for something he felt as though he’d never have. Hakyeon _felt_ the way Taekwoon’s heart was breaking.

They sat in complete silence for almost the entire duration of the album, and when the last track started, the title song accompanied only by the gentlest tinkling piano, Jaehwan finally spoke.

“Dude, he wants to meet you so bad.”

Hakyeon shook his head and wiped his wet cheeks with the fraying sleeve of his sweatshirt. “He wants his ideal of me. If he met me he’d probably go screaming in the other direction.”

“Shut up,” Jaehwan said, kicking at his ankle. “You’re a babe. He’d be lucky to have you. And anyway,” he waved his wineglass importantly, “you heard him – he’s tired of being alone.” His face softened in a way that it only did when he was deadly serious. “And I think maybe you are too.”

“I don’t need his help,” Hakyeon said. He was tired of people looking at him like he was hopeless on his own.

Jaehwan scooted a little closer and nudged their knees together. “Didn’t say you did. Just meant….” He paused to take a long, considering sip of wine. “You used to be this vibrant person, you know? In college you were so in love with life and you had all these plans – don’t think I forgot about how much you wanted to go to grad school – but then your parents, and I guess it just wasn’t in the cards for you. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up on everything good. You’re allowed to want things, Hakyeon.”

Hakyeon took a deep, shaky breath and pulled Jaehwan in with an arm around his ribcage. “Stop being wise. That’s my job.”

“Someone has to talk sense into you when you won’t do it yourself,” Jaehwan said. He poked Hakyeon’s knee. “I still think we should find a way to go to that concert.”

“I don’t have that kind of money, man,” Hakyeon said, shaking his head. If he actually wanted to meet Taekwoon at that concert they’d have to get VIP tickets. They’d probably be like four hundred dollars, minimum. It just wasn’t feasible.

The album cycled and started over, and they sat there drinking their wine, unusually silent for the two of them. For once it was exactly what Hakyeon needed.

But somehow, even wrapped up together with Jaehwan, he still felt very, very alone.

–

“What’s your soulmate like?” Taekwoon asked.

He was sprawled across the couch, his feet in Wonshik’s lap. Taekwoon didn’t remember them finishing off two bottles of wine, but they must have, because the empties were still sitting on the coffee table next to his laptop. Wonshik had given up on reading comments after a while and declared, “You’re amazingly talented and everything you write is good, the end!” And then they’d had another celebratory glass of wine, which had somehow led here.

“He’s...good and kind and gentle and he loves people a lot. And he’s really handsome,” Wonshik mumbled, eyes closed and head tipped back against the couch. “He’s nice to my dog, too.”

Taekwoon sat up a little bit, feeling like there was something wrong with that statement but unable to put his finger on what it was exactly. “Are you happy with him?”

Wonshik made this weird half-snorting noise, but then he said, “I’m happy that I get to see him happy, and that I can help him when he’s sad, too. Just being near him is enough.”

“You’re not together?” Taekwoon asked. He felt like he kind of knew that. He and Wonshik were close friends. If Wonshik was dating someone Taekwoon would have met them by now.

“Nah. He doesn’t know, you know? He might be my soulmate, but I’m not his.” Wonshik shook his head and attempted to drain his wineglass only to discover that it was empty. He let his hand fall back to the couch and the glass tipped sideways and a single drop of dark wine dripped out and fell to the floor.

Taekwoon made a sympathetic noise and nudged Wonshik with his foot. “You should tell him.”

“And say what?” Wonshik asked, rolling his head towards Taekwoon and staring at him with a weird intensity. “Just, ‘hey, I know we’ve been friends for ages and I never said anything, but you’re my soulmate and I just really want you to be happy’?”

Taekwoon shrugged. “May as well. He deserves to know.”

Wonshik nodded slowly. He stared at Taekwoon some more. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something and then closed it again. He leaned forward and set his wineglass on the coffee table.

Taekwoon tucked his toes under Wonshik’s thigh and waited.

“Hey,” he mumbled at last. His voice was rough and he wasn’t looking at Taekwoon anymore. “I know we’ve been friends for ages and I never said anything, but you’re my soulmate and I just really, really want you to be happy.”

Taekwoon stared. He blinked slowly. And then he set his own wineglass on the coffee table so that he could crawl over to Wonshik’s side of the couch and wrap around him like a barnacle and tell him, “You’re my best friend.”

“I know,” Wonshik croaked. “That’s all I want. Just...never make me live without you.”

Taekwoon hugged Wonshik’s head to his chest like a teddy bear and said decisively, “I won’t.”

He thought maybe he heard Wonshik sob and held him closer. They’d be just fine.

–

Hakyeon closed the apartment door behind him with his butt and dropped his newspaper bag on the floor at his feet. He’d gotten the whole route down to fifty-five minutes including the walk to and from the apartment and he was pretty damned proud of himself. Plus, Loraine (the woman who was always drinking coffee and smoking on her porch when he came by, no matter how cold it was outside) kept offering him food every morning. Today it had been homemade donuts coated in powdered sugar, and he’d taken one in each hand and hadn’t even cared that he got sugar on every single paper he delivered for the rest of the route.

“Hey,” Hongbin called from the kitchen, raising his mug of tea in greeting. “Good night?”

Hakyeon shrugged. “Good enough. I freaked out some teenagers who were trying to look cool at the condom display and no one asked me to stock grocery.”

“Nice.” Hongbin drained his cup and put it in the sink. “I’m off to work.”

“Cool. I’m going to bed,” Hakyeon responded. He kicked off his shoes as Hongbin came over to put his own on.

As Hakyeon was shuffling back towards his bedroom, Hongbin called, “Hey, isn’t this your boyfriend?”

Hakyeon turned around slowly and asked, “What?”

Hongbin was holding a shiny ad insert from one of the extra newspapers. It had Taekwoon’s face on it. ‘GIVEAWAY!’ it declared in all caps. “Sponsored by Coca-cola,” Hongbin read out. He held the page out to Hakyeon. “There’s a code on it. It’d be a shame if it’s a winner and it doesn’t get used, right?”

“Right,” Hakyeon agreed, a little dazedly. There was no way it was going to work. Hakyeon didn’t _get_ good luck. He didn’t just get _VIP tickets with Meet ‘n Greet passes_ handed to him for nothing. He pulled his phone out anyway and looked up the website.

His fingers were shaking so hard he had difficulty entering the code, and afterwards the page seemed to take forever to load.

‘Sorry,’ it told him, ‘this code is not a winner. Please try again.’

He told himself he wasn’t disappointed because he hadn’t been expecting anything in the first place and tossed the flyer in the kitchen trash. “Nothing. Guess the universe has other ideas,” he told Hongbin, and his voice was _not_ strained or wet.

“There’s another one,” Hongbin said very quietly. He held out a ripped, dirty flyer, and Hakyeon wasn’t sure he’d even be able to read the code on this one.

“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s not a big deal. I don’t need to go.”

“Fine,” Hongbin said, “then I’ll enter it and I’ll go with Jaehwan when I win.”

Hakyeon practically ripped the page out of his hand, typing the code in with one trembling thumb. It was stupid. He’d probably have to work that night. He always worked Saturday nights. There was no point in even trying but he had to. He _had to_.

He screamed and dropped his phone. It landed facedown and knowing his luck the screen had probably shattered but he didn’t care. He put both shaking hands to his face and sobbed into his palms.

“What?” Hongbin asked, hands on Hakyeon’s shoulders, tense like he was thinking about shaking Hakyeon. “What is it?”

Hakyeon raised his head and let out another ear-piercing screech.

Hongbin dove for the phone, and it turned out that the screen was unbroken. Maybe Hakyeon’s luck had turned after all.

_‘Congratulations! You just won two tickets to Jung Taekwoon’s concert!’_

–

“Wonshik’s coming with me,” Taekwoon told Shinwoo two days before the tour started. In his defense, the first show was right there in Los Angeles, so actually Shinwoo had like a week to make arrangements for that. And they were taking a bus that Taekwoon _knew_ would have plenty of seats. So mostly he had to make sure that Wonshik’s name was on all the correct lists and they’d be golden.

It still made Shinwoo sigh heavily and rub his temples. “Why, exactly, is he suddenly coming along?” It was to his credit that he didn’t even try to talk Taekwoon out of it. He knew by now that it wouldn’t work.

“Well,” Taekwoon said, scrolling half-heartedly through his Twitter notifications. Everyone was gushing about the album – except for the people having a fanwar in the replies, but that was always happening. “I found out that I’m his soulmate, so.”

“I’m sorry,” Shinwoo said. “He’s your what?”

Taekwoon bit his lip. “No,” he said, very patiently and slowly, just in case Shinwoo was old enough that he was getting senile. He didn’t know how those things worked. “I’m _his_ soulmate. He’s not mine.”

Shinwoo shook his head. “That’s not how that works.”

“No one knows how it works,” Taekwoon muttered. “Maybe he is my soulmate but I’m just permanently colorblind because I’m broken. Does it matter?”

Shinwoo closed his eyes for the duration of two long breaths and when he opened them again he said, “No, I suppose not. I’ll book him a hotel room, then.”

“Don’t bother,” Taekwoon said, going back to his phone. “We’ll just share.”

It made Shinwoo sigh again, but Taekwoon didn’t particularly care. He’d done weirder things, and it was none of Shinwoo’s business anyway.

–

“I’m paying for dinner and I will absolutely not be accepting any money from you,” Jaehwan insisted. They’d decided to go out for dinner before the concert, make it a night out, and Hakyeon had fully been planning for the McDonald’s dollar menu, but instead Jaehwan pulled into Perkins and told him, “Just order whatever you want. I’ll take it from Hyuk’s video game budget if I have to.”

“Don’t piss off your fiancé on my account,” Hakyeon said. But he very judiciously ordered one of the more expensive items off the special deals menu and ignored Jaehwan’s exasperation.

They ate and chatted and Hakyeon tried to pretend that he wasn’t practically vibrating out of his skin with excitement. In just a few hours he was going to see Taekwoon in actual, real life, without a screen separating them. And even if Taekwoon didn’t realize that they were soulmates, if nothing changed after this, at least he could say that he’d tried, that he’d met him and maybe even shaken his hand.

Jaehwan glanced at his phone as they finished their meals and said, “We’ve still got plenty of time before we need to be at the venue. We’re getting pie.”

“I don’t need pie,” Hakyeon tried to protest.

But Jaehwan ignored him completely, waved down their server, and ordered two slices of French Silk. He sliced an iron gaze over to Hakyeon and told him, “Just eat the damn pie, Hakyeon.”

Hakyeon huffed, but he did accept and eat the damn pie. And it was actually very good.

“Thanks,” he told Jaehwan as they left the restaurant. “I needed that.”

“See, I’m smarter than you think,” Jaehwan said. He locked arms with Hakyeon and started skipping towards the car. “Come on, now. Let’s go get your man!”

And for that moment – maybe just that moment – Hakyeon let himself feel happy and silly and skip across a parking lot in broad daylight just because he fucking could.

And it felt good.

–

Taekwoon felt good. He was riding on the high of half a successful concert tour behind him and Wonshik had been beside him every step of the way. He didn’t even care that he probably wouldn’t have picked this little Midwest city as a stop if he’d planned the tour himself because it was still an auditorium filled with nearly twenty thousand fans. He’d play this leg just the same as New York or Los Angeles and he would keep his high going through the rest of the tour.

“What are you smiling about?” Wonshik asked as he flopped onto the dressing room couch to watch Taekwoon get made up.

Taekwoon caught Wonshik’s eye around the makeup artist hovering beside him. “After the tour is over, let’s take a vacation.”

“What, just the two of us?” Wonshik said, waving between them. “Like a trip or something?”

Taekwoon shrugged one shoulder. “Sure. You’ve always wanted to go to Paris, right?”

Wonshik chuckled and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Won’t you be tired of traveling?” he asked.

Taekwoon shook his head. “I’ll have you. What else do I need?”

The smile that bloomed on Wonshik’s face was so bright and brilliant that Taekwoon would have done literally anything to put it there again. He thought that maybe they were soulmates after all, if Wonshik’s happiness could make him so happy. “Yeah, okay,” Wonshik said. “I’ll start researching.” He pulled out his phone as if to do just that and Taekwoon felt all warm and gooey inside watching him fumble to unlock it in his excitement.

Wonshik looked so soft, sitting there on the little sofa in his big dark sweater, his pale hair brushing his forehead. His many rings clicked against the surface of his phone as he used it and Taekwoon found himself wondering if Wonshik wanted more. If maybe Wonshik wished that Taekwoon had seen color when he’d seen Wonshik that first time.

Quietly, Taekwoon asked, “What color is your hair?”

It took Wonshik a moment to look up, unsure that Taekwoon was talking to him. “Mine? It’s blue right now,” he said, fingering a lock of it self-consciously.

Taekwoon thought about that, wondered what blue looked like. It was pale – paler than Wonshik’s sweater, paler than his eyes, maybe paler even than his skin tone. “It looks good on you,” he said.

Wonshik ducked his head and mumbled a surprisingly shy, “Thanks.”

Taekwoon felt good.

–

“I am going to vomit,” Hakyeon said, rather decisively.

“No you’re not,” Jaehwan insisted, tugging Hakyeon to their seats. They’d gotten special seating privileges, put in a separate line and let in early because they had VIP tickets. They were sitting, as it turned out, in the very front row, close enough that Hakyeon would be able to reach out and touch Taekwoon if he got near the edge of the stage.

Hakyeon pinched himself. “Tell me I’m not dreaming,” he begged, squeezing Jaehwan’s hand desperately.

Jaehwan squeezed back and insisted, “You are very much awake. Here, take this banner.”

Hakyeon took it. He didn’t even read what it said. He couldn’t figure out what words were at the moment.

“We’re taking a selfie and sending it to Hyukkie so he can be jealous that I look so fabulous without him,” Jaehwan decided, holding up his phone.

“He saw you before you left the house,” Hakyeon mumbled, posing woodenly for the photo.

“You’re a mess, honey,” Jaehwan said, but sent the picture anyway, probably with a caption making fun of Hakyeon and simultaneously making some sort of innuendo that would drive Sanghyuk crazy. Jaehwan was good at that sort of thing.

Hakyeon nodded. He was shaking so hard that holding the banner he’d been given was difficult. “I’m aware,” he said.

Jaehwan just shook his head and focused intently on his phone. He and Sanghyuk were probably sexting, Hakyeon decided. It was better if he didn’t know.

He would just wait for the concert to start and try not to die of an anxiety attack before then.

–

They were running final checks and taping a mic to Taekwoon’s face when Wonshik came up to him again.

“Greece,” he said.

Taekwoon’s fingers fluttered over his face. “Am I shiny?”

Wonshik chuckled and grabbed his hand. “The country,” he amended. “Let’s go to Greece after the tour is over. Rent a house for a week and spend all our time on the beach.”

Taekwoon squeezed Wonshik’s fingers. “Deal.”

Wonshik veritably _beamed_ at him, lacing their fingers together for just a moment before he let go. “Knock ‘em dead,” he told Taekwoon as the stage manager started counting down.

“I’ll see you on the flipside,” Taekwoon said, and scooted away to prepare for his big entrance.

The music started, the lights went up, and there was a hushed silence for the space of a heartbeat before the curtain opened and Taekwoon stepped out on stage and the crowd _screamed_.

He looked out at the crowd and started to sing and then suddenly, _suddenly_ the lights were not just bright, they were blinding in their intensity. The backdrop curtains were not just dark, they were the most vibrantly rich thing he’d ever seen. And Wonshik standing in the wing...his hair was blue. His hair was _blue._

Taekwoon didn’t know how he kept singing, even as he desperately scanned the crowd. It must have been, it _must have been_. He’d seen the front row first, and they were the only ones he could really make out with the stage lights blinding him to the rows farther back. It had to be someone in the front row.

But there were so many people there, young girls, their mothers, and a handful of young men, maybe around his own age.

One of them – and it couldn’t be, but Taekwoon couldn’t help but wonder, couldn’t help but _hope –_ was crying. He stood there motionless, doing his best impression of a marble statue except that he was so much more handsome than a statue. His skin was rich and his hair was so dark and his tears glittered like diamonds as they trickled slowly down his face.

He didn’t stop crying for the whole concert. But when Taekwoon sat down at the piano and played _the song_ , he sang along, every single word.

It had to be. It was almost impossible, almost too good to be true, but it had to be.

After the last song, after the encore, he stumbled off the stage in a half-daze and practically fell into Wonshik’s arms. He hadn’t had a moment to breathe since the concert started. He’d been running from cue to cue, doing costume changes in front of everyone, but now he was done and he had a moment or two before the Meet and Greet was due to start, a moment to collect himself and clean up and change, and he went straight to Wonshik.

“You did amazing,” Wonshik was trying to tell him. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Wonshik,” Taekwoon gasped. He couldn’t seem to draw a full breath. He didn’t know how he’d made it through the concert. “Wonshik, your hair is blue.”

Wonshik’s brow furrowed, dark eyebrows over darker eyes, so many nuances that he didn’t have names for yet. Were Wonshik’s eyes brown? Were they black? “Yeah, I told you that earlier. Thinking of getting yours dyed?”

Taekwoon shook his head, clutched Wonshik’s sleeve and willed him to understand. “No, Wonshik. Your _hair is blue._ ”

Suddenly it seemed to click. Wonshik’s eyes widened and he gripped Taekwoon’s shoulders hard and he said, “Taekwoon, did you…? Are you…?”

Taekwoon didn’t realize how hopeful Wonshik looked until he said, “Someone in the audience,” and Wonshik’s whole face crumpled. At once he forgot about his own discovery and murmured, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

Wonshik shook his head and pulled Taekwoon close, pressed a kiss to his temple and said, “No. You’re my best friend, remember? That’s all I want from you, is to keep being your best friend. I’m not your soulmate, but you’re mine. And I want you to be happy.”

Taekwoon was not ashamed to say that he cried a little, there in Wonshik’s arms where he had always, always been safe. And then Wonshik toted him off to his dressing room to get changed and have his face touched up before he had to see a bunch of fans up close and personal.

“He’s going to be there, Wonshik,” Taekwoon whispered as they were escorted down the hall to the room where the Meet and Greet would be held.

Wonshik nudged him discreetly. “You know who it is?”

“Not for sure,” Taekwoon admitted. He glanced around to make sure no one was listening to them and lowered his voice further when he said, “There was this one guy, though.”

“You’ll know,” Wonshik told him. “When you meet him, when you talk to him, if he’s the one then you’ll know. Trust me.”

“With my life,” Taekwoon promised, just before he was whisked away to do his job.

Later, he wouldn’t remember most of the fans that he met, shook hands with and gave high-fives to and took pictures beside and signed autographs for. Because even as he exchanged pleasantries with each person, with teenage girls and their mothers and the young men who were fighting stereotypes to be his fans, he was tracking one man’s progress towards the head of the line.

He was clutching a fan banner so tightly in one hand that the knuckles were bloodless pale. His other hand was tangled with the hand of the man beside him, and he was being practically dragged along. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot.

Taekwoon wrapped up with the sixteen-year-old girl who had given up getting a car for her birthday so that her parents would buy her concert tickets instead and then the two men were in front of him and the one was pushing Taekwoon’s soulmate toward him and instead of saying something about it Taekwoon murmured, “Hello.”

“Hi,” the man croaked, and then said nothing more. His friend poked him but he didn’t move. A blush filled his cheeks and it was so soft, so faint that it nearly blended into his skin tone but Taekwoon could see it now, the way he wouldn’t have been able to before.

“What’s your name?” Taekwoon asked. He reached for the banner, pulled it from the other man’s suddenly slack grip, and set it on the table beside him to sign it in silver sharpie.

He cleared his throat. “Hakyeon,” he said.

Just that – just the name of his soulmate – made Taekwoon’s breath catch. He told himself to breathe and pulled a soft smile out from somewhere and managed to say, “It’s very nice to meet you, Hakyeon.”

Hakyeon said nothing in response.

The man beside Hakyeon, who seemed to be growing more and more antsy the longer he stood there, suddenly blurted, “You’re his soulmate.”

Taekwoon turned his gaze to the man and nodded very slowly once. His heart was jumping in his throat. He took his time signing Hakyeon’s banner and then handed it to him. Hakyeon’s hand shook when he accepted it.

They stood there in silence for a few seconds, the three of them looking at each other, and then Taekwoon made himself ask Hakyeon’s friend, “Should I sign yours as well?”

The man shook himself and handed over a banner that matched Hakyeon’s. “It’s Jaehwan,” he said.

Taekwoon signed it, gave it back, and offered, “Do you want a picture?”

They passed their phones over to the photographer that was on standby and then cautiously shuffled to either side of Taekwoon.

Normally, Taekwoon didn’t touch the fans overmuch when he took pictures with them, but in this instance he couldn’t help himself. He slung an arm around each of them and immediately his left arm started tingling. Hakyeon, on his left side, shivered and subconsciously tucked himself a little closer to Taekwoon.

All too soon the pictures had been taken and they were stepping away. Taekwoon shook their hands and told them again, “It was so good to meet you,” and then they were ushered off by the staff.

“You just let him go?” Wonshik would hiss at him later, as they packed up to go back to the hotel.

And Taekwoon would reply, “No. I gave him a choice.”

–

Jaehwan started ranting as soon as they were in the car. “He barely acknowledged you! It’s like he didn’t care at all that you’re his soulmate. And right after he put out that song, too. I always thought he wrote his own music, but maybe I was wrong, huh?”

“Jaehwan,” Hakyeon murmured. He ran his fingers over the edges of his support banner again. Taekwoon’s handwriting was a mess, but his signature was perfect and practiced. “It’s fine. Calm down.”

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down, Cha Hakyeon. He treated you like dirt. And after all you went through so you could see him! You had to trade shifts at work just so you could come here.”

“Jaehwan, it’s fine,” Hakyeon repeated, holding the banner up to the glow of the streetlights slanting in through the window. “He wasn’t ignoring me.”

“He wasn’t–” Jaehwan spluttered. “He treated you like any other fan – like you weren’t the _best thing that could ever fucking happen to him_ –”

“ _Jaehwan_ ,” Hakyeon interrupted firmly. “He didn’t.” He smiled as he glanced at his friend, feeling brighter and lighter than he had since – well, for years. “He didn’t treat me just like anyone else.”

_‘I’ll be in town until Monday,’_ the banner said in Taekwoon’s messy scrawl. _‘Call me and we’ll talk? I know this is sudden, but...it’s meant to be, right?’_

Underneath the note was a phone number.

–

“I can’t believe you just...gave him your phone number,” Wonshik said, not for the first time, as they settled on the couch in their hotel suite.

Taekwoon opened the box of pizza he’d convinced a staffer to go pick up for them and took his time selecting a slice. “If it had been me, you would have done the same thing,” he said.

“Fair enough,” Wonshik admitted, practically sitting _on_ Taekwoon as he came for the pizza. “I mean, I did follow you around like a puppy for a whole day when I first met you.”

“Wait,” Taekwoon said through a mouthful of food, “ _that’s_ why you kept hovering?”

Wonshik blushed. His blush wasn’t as pretty as Hakyeon’s, but it was endearing all the same. “I mean...I kind of assumed that we were soulmates and you already knew. So mostly I just wanted to be near you for as long as possible.”

“Oh,” Taekwoon murmured. He...hadn’t realized how much this had probably hurt Wonshik. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” Wonshik said, bumping shoulders with him. “You let me be near you and you became my best friend and any crush I had on you when we first met was way less important than what we have now.”

Taekwoon bumped him back. “You’ll always be my best friend.”

“I know,” Wonshik replied. “Don’t worry about it, man. I’m happy with what we’ve got, I promise.”

Taekwoon put down his pizza just to hug Wonshik anyway. He was kind of amazing. “Thanks for supporting me.”

Wonshik took a bite of pizza around Taekwoon’s head and patted his back. “That’s what I’m for, dude.”

–

Jaehwan burst through the door of his apartment and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Hakyeon has a sugar daddy!”

Sanghyuk and Hongbin looked up from the TV in creepy synchronization to stare at Jaehwan like he’d just...well, like he’d just declared that their friend had a sugar daddy. Gleefully.

Hakyeon sighed as he closed the front door behind him, but he couldn’t quite summon the level of irritated or embarrassed that he would normally feel in this situation. His head just kept repeating every single word Taekwoon had said to him and the note that he’d written. It was so surreal. Even the concert didn’t feel like it had been real – more like a strange fever dream, floaty and indistinct and so, so beautiful.

Hongbin and Sanghyuk’s eyes turned to him when he didn’t immediately refute Jaehwan’s words. “What, for real?” Hongbin asked. His fingers were gripping tightly into the faded plaid of the sofa back, like he wanted to leap over it to defend Hakyeon’s honor.

“No, of course not,” Hakyeon snorted. He toed off his shoes and wandered further into the room, flopping down in the armchair next to the couch.

“May as well be,” Jaehwan retorted, sitting _on_ Sanghyuk instead of the _entire empty couch cushion_ between him and Hongbin. He sunk his fingers into Sanghyuk’s hair and made a face like he was very pleased with himself when Sanghyuk just leaned into his touch. “Jung Taekwoon gave Hakyeon his _phone number_.”

Hakyeon worried that Hongbin was going to get whiplash, he turned to look at him so fast. “For _real_?” he said again.

Hakyeon nodded slowly, running his fingers over the edges of his fan banner again. He didn’t need to look down to know what it said anymore – he’d already memorized it. “Yeah. He asked me to call him. He wants...I don’t know what he wants,” he admitted. “But he knows. What we are, that is.”

Hongbin was up off the couch and across the room to hug Hakyeon almost quicker than he could blink. “I’m really happy for you,” he said, squeezing Hakyeon tight. “Guess I’ll have to find a new roommate, huh?”

“As if,” Hakyeon scoffed. “Whatever he and I end up being, I don’t have any plans to abandon you just yet. You know I have to stick around here anyway.”

Hongbin pulled back to smirk at him. “So you’re not going to flit off to LA to live in his mansion or some shit?”

Hakyeon laughed, and it felt so good, to be able to laugh. He hadn’t been doing it enough lately, he realized. “Not anytime soon. Maybe...I don’t know, maybe someday. If things go well, or if...I don’t know,” he repeated. “I’d rather not make any plans until he and I have talked and I know we’re on the same page, you know?”

“Yeah,” Hongbin murmured, and he sat down on the coffee table instead of going back to the far side of the couch. “But you do want to be with him, right?”

“Of course I do,” Hakyeon said. He felt a clenching in his gut just at the thought of being around Taekwoon all the time, hearing his voice, seeing his face every day – _god,_ just the thought of it makes him smile. “I assume you mean romantically, though.”

“Actually,” Sanghyuk interrupts, smirking at Hakyeon in a way that means he’s definitely up to no good (he has his hand on Jaehwan’s ass, which could account for it except that he wouldn’t be bothering to talk to them if that were the case), “I think he’s asking whether you want to fuck him.”

“Please,” Jaehwan retorted before Hakyeon could even open his mouth. “Of course he wants to fuck him. Everyone wants to fuck Jung Taekwoon.”

Sanghyuk turned to eye him, fake-angry face on, and asked, “Even you?”

“Especially me,” Jaehwan said. “God, do you even hear yourself?”

Sanghyuk growled playfully and started nipping at Jaehwan’s neck, making him squeal, and both Hakyeon and Hongbin pointedly looked away.

“Maybe it’s time we left,” Hongbin said loudly, over the sound of Jaehwan starting to moan as Sanghyuk pressed him back against the sofa.

Hakyeon nodded hurriedly and stood, not bothering to look at either of their hosts as he stuttered a goodbye and strode out of the apartment as fast as his legs would take him, with Hongbin right at his heels.

When they were safely outside, out of range of any potential noises (Hakyeon hoped. Jaehwan could be _very_ loud.), Hongbin asked again, “You want to date him, right?”

“I want to try if he does,” Hakyeon said. He gripped the edges of the banner again, staring down at the glimmer of silver sharpie in the glow of the streetlights. “I mean, I’ll take whatever he wants to give me. But if he...if there’s any chance that we can be romantically involved? I want that.” He swallowed, and added in a whisper, “Probably more than I want to admit.”

Hongbin slung an arm around Hakyeon’s neck and said cheerfully, “I thought so.”

“You think you’re so smart, huh?” Hakyeon said, poking him in the side.

“I’ve seen the way you look at him,” Hongbin said. He shrugged one shoulder lazily. “You’re so intense about a photo, I can’t imagine how you must look when you see him in real life.”

Hakyeon chuckled a little at himself and admitted, “Probably like an idiot.”

“A love-sick idiot, though,” Hongbin said, and took rounding his car to get into the driver’s side as an opportunity to escape Hakyeon’s vengeful kick to the kneecap.

–

Taekwoon was getting ready for bed, listening to the sounds of Wonshik in the other room of the hotel suite, humming to himself and tapping out beats on the case of his laptop, when his phone rang. He startled and stared at it for half a heartbeat, lying innocently on the nightstand, and then he snatched it up.

It was an unknown number.

He accepted the call, put it to his ear, and murmured, “Hello?”

“Hi,” said the breathless voice on the other end of the line, and immediately there was a wash of warmth and comfort over Taekwoon’s whole person. “It’s Hakyeon.”

“Hi, Hakyeon,” Taekwoon said, mentally counting his breaths so he wouldn’t hyperventilate. “I’m glad you called.” _I wasn’t sure you would,_ he didn’t say.

There was a pause, and a shuffling sound like Hakyeon was shifting, or maybe dragging a hand through his hair. Taekwoon cursed the fact that he didn’t know Hakyeon’s habits yet, his tells, his body language. “Sorry,” Hakyeon said, a soft noise like he was laughing at himself, “I guess I should have waited and called in the morning, huh?”

“No,” Taekwoon said without having to think about it. “It’s fine. I’m glad you called.”

“You said that,” Hakyeon replied, and he was definitely laughing, just a bit. Maybe a little at Taekwoon’s expense, but...at both of them.

“I’m sorry,” Taekwoon murmured. “We’re not good at this, are we?”

He wondered at the brief pause before Hakyeon spoke again, wondered what he was thinking, what he was doing, what facial expressions he was making. Taekwoon wanted to drink it all in and memorize it and know every single thing about Hakyeon. “Maybe we’ll be better at it in person?” Hakyeon offered, haltingly.

“Coffee?” Taekwoon suggested. “I’ll buy.”

“Will you get mauled in a Starbucks?” Hakyeon asked, what had to be a teasing lilt coloring his words.

Taekwoon felt himself smiling in response. “Maybe. Do you know any local places?”

“Maybe one,” Hakyeon replied, sounding (Taekwoon wasn’t sure) like he wasn’t confident in that. “I think there’s a place my roommate goes a lot. I’ll ask and text you the address later?”

Taekwoon hummed softly in response, and then offered, “We don’t have to go for coffee, if you’d prefer something else.”

Hakyeon sounded overly cheerful to Taekwoon’s ears, when he said, “No, it’s fine! I just don’t go out much, so I don’t know the best places. Hongbin will know.”

“Okay,” Taekwoon said, trying not to choke on his heart as it beat its way up into his throat. “Sounds good. Is morning good for you?”

“Yeah,” Hakyeon said roughly, like he didn’t think it was soon enough. Taekwoon understood that sentiment.

Taekwoon swallowed hard and knew that even so his voice would be choked when he said, “I look forward to seeing you, Hakyeon.”

Hakyeon barely whispered, “Me too.”

It was enough.

–

Hakyeon hadn’t had to explain to Hongbin why he needed to know where his favorite coffee shop was. Finding out whether it actually had good coffee was slightly more complicated, because Hongbin was a tea drinker, but finally Hakyeon threw up his hands and said, “Whatever! He drinks Starbucks. His bar can’t be _that_ high,” and resolutely ignored Hongbin when he started to tease him about the amount of _affection_ in his voice even while complaining about Taekwoon.

Walking into the coffee shop and not knowing if Taekwoon would be there yet had been nerve-wracking. Waiting in the coffee shop, sitting at an empty table by himself, even after Taekwoon texted to say that he was on his way, was even more nerve-wracking.

But when Taekwoon walked in it ceased to matter. Because he was there, ripped-jeans-soft-hoodie-padded-jacket-dark-beanie, face clean and fresh, a single ring on the pointer finger of his right hand. Hakyeon didn’t know why he’d expected Concert Taekwoon, dressed to the nines and a full face of makeup and styled hair. This was probably what he normally looked like. It was the way he looked in a lot of his Instagram posts, anyway.

This was easier to handle, more like a regular coffee date and less like a clandestine meeting with a celebrity. There was still a chance that someone would recognize Taekwoon, but that was less important than Taekwoon spotting him and immediately gravitating towards the corner booth he’d claimed, a little away from the rest of the patrons.

“Hi,” said Taekwoon, leaning forward a little like he wanted to hug Hakyeon and wasn’t sure it would be welcome.

Hakyeon stood and hoped he was reading Taekwoon right, leaning in for a hug and getting it returned immediately, a firm squeeze around his middle and then Taekwoon just lingering for a moment, his chin on Hakyeon’s shoulder, just that tiniest bit taller than him. “Hi,” Hakyeon managed.

Taekwoon hummed softly, in that tone of voice that always made Hakyeon melt in his music. “We fit together well,” he observed.

Hakyeon’s throat closed up and he couldn’t have responded if he tried.

“I’ll get us drinks,” Taekwoon suggested, stepping back, taking off his coat to drop on the seat across from where Hakyeon had been sitting. “What do you want?”

Hakyeon stuttered and had to take a deep breath and try again. Taekwoon just smiled a little sympathetically and waited patiently. “I uh...I’ll just have a black coffee, I guess.” He tried not to let his tone betray how much he hated the stuff, but even if Taekwoon was rich he didn’t want to make him pay for one of the ridiculously overpriced sugary drinks, even if they sounded better.

Taekwoon nodded sagely, but there was a little quirk to his lips that reminded Hakyeon an awful lot of Hongbin. “Sit,” he suggested. “I’ll be right back.”

Hakyeon sat, jiggling his leg until he realized he was doing it and forced himself to stop. And then he started tapping his fingers against the tabletop, realized it, and made himself quit that, too. He was just thinking about pulling out his phone to distract himself when Taekwoon set two cups down on the table and slid into the booth next to him.

“Oh,” Hakyeon said, glancing at Taekwoon’s coat on the other bench, and then scooted over a bit so there was room for Taekwoon’s entire butt on the seat.

“Sorry, is this okay?” Taekwoon asked, but there was a flavor of mischief to his expression still. He shifted a little closer, their thighs brushing, and a light flush started to bloom on his high cheekbones.

Hakyeon nodded blankly, muttered, “Yeah, of course,” and picked up his drink just for something to do with his hands.

Taekwoon watched him too intently as he lifted it, and Hakyeon realized why as soon as he took the first sip.

“This is not black,” he said.

Taekwoon shrugged sheepishly, but said, “I thought you might like this better.”

It was, if Hakyeon had to guess, the Spring Special with all the fruity syrups in it. “How did you guess?”

“You were staring at the sign when I walked in,” Taekwoon said, gesturing to the three-foot-wide blackboard right next to the cash register.

Hakyeon hadn’t remembered doing that, but he must have been. Somewhere in the back of his head he acknowledged that he _had_ already known what the Spring Special was. “What would you have done if I hated it?” he asked.

“Given you this and pretended that I mixed our drinks up,” Taekwoon said, a quirk of a smile as he lifted his own cup.

“Clever,” Hakyeon allowed. “But for the record, you’re right. I hate the actual flavor of coffee.”

Taekwoon cocked his head to the side, hummed thoughtfully, and asked, “Why drink it, then?”

Hakyeon shrugged. He took another sip of the sweet, fruity drink and said, “It’s cheap and keeps me awake. I work nights and don’t sleep enough.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy,” Taekwoon mused, but he just smiled a little and took a sip of his own coffee. He shifted and his knee bumped Hakyeon’s.

“Yeah, well,” Hakyeon muttered, ducking his head and glancing down at himself in derision. His wool pea coat had been a gift when he was in college, and it was still in fairly good condition, all things considered. But the frayed hoodie underneath it, his jeans ripped from wear instead of on purpose like Taekwoon’s, and the sneakers that had long since reached the end of their life expectancy were all a reminder of the differences between them.

God, the universe really had a sick fucking sense of humor. It had paired lowly, poor Hakyeon with the mountain of debt that he could never even hope to repay with Jung Taekwoon, rich famous pop star in a designer beanie who probably owned a yacht or some shit.

“I’m not here to judge you,” Taekwoon murmured.

Hakyeon’s head snapped up and he couldn’t help the wide-eyed stare that he offered Taekwoon.

Taekwoon caught his gaze and held it, soft and open. “I won’t judge you,” he repeated. His hand wrapped around Hakyeon’s shoulder, and only then did Hakyeon realize how much he had hunched into himself, how hard he was trying to hide from the world – from _Taekwoon_.

“We don’t exactly match up though, do we?” Hakyeon asked, wry.

“Does it matter?” Taekwoon asked, his head doing a cute little side-to-side bobble that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else – but maybe that was Hakyeon’s bias talking. “We’re soulmates.”

The way that knocked the breath out of Hakyeon, leaving him speechless, was overwhelming. He knew what they were – and he knew that Taekwoon knew it too – but to hear Taekwoon say it aloud, to see the way that he looked at Hakyeon as he did so, like he was _precious_ – it made the joy swell in him so abruptly that it _hurt_.

“I thought I would never meet you,” Hakyeon said, his voice coming out as barely more than a whisper because there was still affection like a fire rushing through his veins. “I saw you on fucking YouTube and I thought that it was completely hopeless. And I told myself that it was fine, that I was fine on my own, but _god_.” He reached for Taekwoon, gripping his fingers tight underneath the table, feeling Taekwoon squeeze back, and finished, “Now that I’ve met you I never want to let go.”

It was stupid. He’d bared his entire soul in one fell swoop and if Taekwoon didn’t feel the same way, if he was turned off by the desperate way that Hakyeon was aching for him then he’d never forgive himself, but he couldn’t help it either.

“Good,” Taekwoon told him, a little smile flirting with the corners of his mouth. “Then don’t. Don’t ever let me go.”

“Excuse me,” a high voice said, interrupting before Hakyeon could even fucking respond. “Sorry, but are you Jung Taekwoon?”

A girl had come up to their table, blond and tiny – Hakyeon was willing to bet she would barely come up to Taekwoon’s elbow if he were standing. She couldn’t be older than sixteen.

Taekwoon offered her a stiff smile and asked, “Sorry, who are you?”

“I’m a huge fan,” she gushed, clutching her pink, glitter-encrusted phone to her chest. “I didn’t manage to get a meet and greet pass for your concert last night and I was just hoping that you would take a picture with me?”

Taekwoon obligingly let go of Hakyeon’s hand and stood, taking the sparkly phone and holding it out for a selfie. Hakyeon had been wrong – the very top of the girl’s head was almost even with Taekwoon’s shoulder.

When Taekwoon handed the phone back the girl thanked him brightly, and then her gaze turned to Hakyeon, wide eyes blinking too innocently as her ponytail swayed a little. “Who’s your friend?” she asked, voice too light not to be on purpose.

Taekwoon gave her a smile that Hakyeon could somehow just _tell_ was forced and fake. “A friend,” he replied. “I’m sorry, but we haven’t seen each other for a while and we were really hoping to catch up.”

“Oh!” she said, bright even though Hakyeon could still feel her eyes assessing him surreptitiously. “No, I’m sorry. I’ll leave you to talk. Thanks for humoring me!” She turned and went back to her table, sitting down across from a boy who was bent over his phone and grinding the straw of his drink between his front teeth.

Taekwoon returned his gaze to Hakyeon, face going soft again, and he said, “I’m sorry about that.”

“No, it’s okay,” Hakyeon said. “Hazards of the job, right?”

“Still,” Taekwoon said, and his hand reached for Hakyeon’s and then drew up short. He hesitated, then added, “We probably shouldn’t linger here.”

Hakyeon blew out a breath. “Yeah, of course,” he said, already dreading leaving Taekwoon’s side while his mind jumped ahead to work, to getting a few hours of sleep and then getting up early so he could make a stop before his shift that night.

“We could go back to my hotel?” Taekwoon offered, clearly hesitant.

Hakyeon thought of the pictures he’d seen on Twitter in the past, fans camped out outside Taekwoon’s hotels, and said, “Maybe not the best idea? Not if we want to keep this on the down-low for a while.”

Taekwoon winced, seeming to realize the same. He looked longingly at Hakyeon’s hand, lying innocently on the tabletop, and cleared his throat. “Um, we could–”

“I might know a place,” Hakyeon interjected. It was a stupid idea. He hadn’t taken anyone there, not even Jaehwan or Hongbin or Sanghyuk. But if anyone deserved to go there, if anyone deserved to _know_ , it was Taekwoon. “Somewhere we won’t be disturbed.”

“You’re not about to murder me and hide my body in the woods, are you?” Taekwoon teased, but his eyes were bright.

Hakyeon smiled at him, trying for unnerving and mostly accomplishing completely besotted, if he had to guess. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said anyway, in his most mysterious voice.

It made Taekwoon chuckle, and he stood and pulled on his coat and they left the shop still carrying their drinks.

The March air was biting outside, the wind whipping hard little pellets of snow into their faces. Hakyeon yanked up the hood of his sweatshirt and hunched into himself and asked Taekwoon, “How do you feel about public transportation?”

Taekwoon clutched his cup of coffee close to his face with both hands and said, “Haven’t done that in a while. Sounds like fun.”

They got on the bus just as it pulled up, Hakyeon dropping change in for both of them and then tugging Taekwoon to the very back and boxing him in against the window. Hidden there, it was easy to capture Taekwoon’s hand again, interlace their fingers and squeeze tight and feel Taekwoon’s answer in his firm grip.

“We should talk about what this is, huh?” Hakyeon said, low and wry over the hum of the bus’ engine.

Taekwoon smiled at him, more eye than mouth. “You have an advantage over me,” he complained. “You’ve had a lot longer to think about what you want.”

Hakyeon nodded. “Maybe,” he agreed. “But I really only want one thing.” He caught Taekwoon’s eye, feeling shy all of a sudden, and hoped that any redness in his cheeks would be chalked up to the cold. “You.”

Taekwoon’s joy was like moonlight – such a soft, gentle glow, but all-encompassing just the same, filling every crevice of Hakyeon until he was nearly bursting with it. His thumb stroked over the back of Hakyeon’s hand and he murmured, “Good, because that’s all I want too.”

“So we’ll figure it out later?” Hakyeon decided, content for now just to enjoy Taekwoon’s presence.

“May as well,” Taekwoon said. “We’ve got a whole lifetime.”

And didn’t that just sound like a fucking _miracle_.

–

Taekwoon had no idea where they were going. They got off the bus in an area that looked residential and Hakyeon led him down the street with the ease of long practice.

“Are we going to your place?” Taekwoon asked.

Hakyeon glanced back and gave him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Not exactly,” he replied softly.

The building they walked up to just said it was a _care facility_ , like that meant something. Taekwoon thought about asking where they were, but instead just watched the back of Hakyeon’s dark head as he went up to the desk. He chatted amiably with the receptionist there, who seemed to know him, and signed them in on a clipboard page full of names.

As Hakyeon took his hand and led him down the hall, Taekwoon took in their surroundings quietly. Not quite a retirement home, with too many beeping machines not to be some sort of medical facility. Not exactly a hospital but...maybe something like it.

Hakyeon pushed through a door with the familiarity of someone who had been doing it for a long time. Inside was what looked like a hospital bed, swathed in blankets and surrounded by machines that made whistling, dripping, beeping noises, too loud in the silence.

The woman in the bed was utterly still, her arms too thin on top of the covers, her hair lank and brittle against the stark white of the pillow. There were wires and tubes connected to her every which way, but around them Taekwoon could see in her face similarities to Hakyeon – the same cheekbones, the same slant to her jaw.

Hakyeon tugged Taekwoon up to the side of the bed and then let go of his hand to adjust the faded quilt over the woman’s body. He wrapped his fingers around hers, dwarfing them easily, and murmured, “Hi, Mom.”

Taekwoon inhaled slowly, because something in him had known, or at least suspected. He had known Hakyeon for less than a full day and soulmates or no, to be trusted with something like this….

“This is Taekwoon,” Hakyeon said. He talked to his mother as though she were awake, though her eyelids never even fluttered. “He’s my soulmate.”

He looked expectantly at Taekwoon, who floundered for something to say before finally settling on, “Hello, Mrs. Cha. It’s very nice to meet you.”

It made Hakyeon smile at him a little brighter than before, and that was more than worth it.

“I told you he was handsome, didn’t I?” Hakyeon said, and he was still looking at Taekwoon so for a moment Taekwoon didn’t realize that Hakyeon was still talking to his mother. “He’s even prettier in person, even without the makeup. I didn’t think it was possible for a person to look airbrushed in real life.”

Taekwoon felt the tips of his ears and the crests of his cheekbones going red and ducked his head to hide it. “You’re one to talk,” he muttered before he’d thought about it. But once it was out of his mouth he didn’t even think about taking it back. Hakyeon was like some otherworldly thing, a wood sprite come out of the forest to take human form and drive Taekwoon insane with his beauty. He wouldn’t apologize for appreciating it.

Hakyeon turned his eyes back to his mother and reached out to smooth down her hair. “I think we’ll be happy. We’ve just met, but...I’d like to hope, for once. And you want me to be happy, right?”

The beeping of the machines was the only answer that he got, but it seemed to be enough for him. He spoke softly to his mother for a while longer, gently massaging her hand as he did so, and his devotion was clear in every movement that he made, every word, every lilt of his voice. He told her about the concert and the coffee shop and about a woman named Loraine who apparently fed him regularly.

After a while he smoothed her hair again and stepped back, and then he took Taekwoon’s hand and led him over to a small sofa against the far wall and they sat together. Hakyeon turned sideways so that he was facing Taekwoon, so close that Taekwoon could smell the foresty scent of his shampoo.

“Thank you,” Hakyeon said, his thumb drawing slow patterns across Taekwoon’s knuckles.

Taekwoon shook his head and resisted the urge to just lean forward and kiss Hakyeon. He wasn’t sure it would be welcome, wasn’t sure it was what either of them wanted just yet. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t do anything.”

Hakyeon drew a breath that was shaking. “You’re the first person I’ve brought here,” he confessed. “Even my friends have never set foot in this room. But you had no idea what to expect and you were still kind.”

“You’re a good son,” Taekwoon said. “I don’t know if I could….” He thought of something happening to his mother and having to see her in a place like this, lying motionless on a bed with machines keeping her alive, and knew that he would not be able to handle it with anywhere near the grace that Hakyeon was managing.

“They were coming to my graduation ceremony,” Hakyeon said. He looked down at their joined hands instead of into Taekwoon’s face, and Taekwoon watched shadow cover his expression and wished he had the courage to put a hand beneath Hakyeon’s chin, to coax him to lift his face. Instead he squeezed Hakyeon’s fingers and listened as closely as he could. “I wanted them there so badly, and the weather was bad but they thought they could make it, you know?”

He glanced over at his mother and swallowed hard, throat bobbing. “Dad died at the scene. And Mom has been...like that...for three years.”

Taekwoon bit his lip, wondered if anything he could say would mean anything at all, and still murmured, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s–” Hakyeon grimaced, and said, “No, it’s not okay. But it’s. I’m living with it, you know? And as long as there’s a chance she could wake up, I’m going to do everything in my power to make it happen.”

“You’re stronger than I am,” Taekwoon said.

Hakyeon lifted one shoulder and then let it drop, half a shrug. “Only because I had to be. Only when there wasn’t another choice.”

Taekwoon hesitated another moment, and then finally gave into the urge to reach forward and pull Hakyeon into his arms. “If you need a shoulder to lean on, I’m here,” he offered.

“Thank you,” Hakyeon replied, a breathless sob. He clung to Taekwoon’s shoulders like he never wanted to let go.

Taekwoon understood the sentiment completely.

–

Hakyeon didn’t even notice the time passing until the nurse came in to check on his mother and suddenly he realized that it was almost one o’clock. Once he and Taekwoon had started talking he hadn’t wanted to stop.

“Sorry,” he told Taekwoon. “You probably have better things to do than sit here all day.”

But Taekwoon just smiled softly at him. In all the time they’d been sitting there he hadn’t once let go of Hakyeon’s hand. “There’s nothing more important than you,” he said.

Just that morning, Hakyeon wouldn’t have believed it. But they hadn’t been shy, the last few hours, about speaking the truth and sharing their deepest secrets. Taekwoon wouldn’t start lying to him now.

“Are you hungry?” Hakyeon suggested instead. “We could go to my place and I’ll cook something.” He was pretty sure there were three packets of ramen in his kitchen and not much else, but he’d figure something out.

“I have a better idea,” Taekwoon said, conspiratorial as he leaned closer. “Let’s go to your place and I’ll make Wonshik bring us takeout.”

Hakyeon glanced over at his mother, lying motionless on the bed, and then back to Taekwoon warily. “I don’t have money for–” he started, but Taekwoon interrupted him before he finished, shushing him gently.

“Everything you make is going towards her medical bills, right?” Hakyeon hadn’t said it outright, but he supposed it wasn’t a hard jump for Taekwoon to make, considering.

So he didn’t mention the student loans. Or that Hongbin was covering more than his half of the rent, or that Hakyeon was still making payments on his parents’ house, even though it was half a state away and he couldn’t even bring himself to go back there.

Taekwoon squeezed his hand, murmured, “I’ll cover lunch. Don’t worry about it,” and then stood and tugged Hakyeon up with him.

Instead of just leaving, striding out without looking back, Taekwoon went to the bed first. He touched Hakyeon’s mother’s hand gently and murmured a quiet, “Thanks for letting us sit with you, Mrs. Cha. It was very nice to meet you. I hope I can visit again soon.”

He waited while Hakyeon said his own goodbyes, and when they left it was hand-in-hand.

When Hakyeon signed them out again at the desk, the receptionist, Grace, told him, “It’s good to see you with someone, Hakyeon. We all worry about you being alone all the time.”

Hakyeon flushed and focused very hard on the pen in his hand rather than daring to look up at her or Taekwoon. “I’ve always been fine on my own,” he muttered.

“But you don’t have to be,” Grace said, sticking her fussy Auntie nose where it didn’t belong. The staff there had come to know him a little too well. “And this boy of yours is so handsome.”

Hakyeon choked on his own spit and coughed spastically for a moment. “He’s not–”

He stopped before he finished the sentence, because she was kind of right. Maybe they hadn’t decided _what_ they were, exactly, but it wasn’t even a question whether they belonged to each other, whether they belonged _together_. They were soulmates.

“I’ll take care of him,” Taekwoon said from just behind Hakyeon, draping an arm around his waist. When Hakyeon craned his head around to look at him, he was watching Grace with a level gaze, serious and determined.

Well, then.

Grace laughed, her loud bright boisterous laugh, and she leaned across the table to thump Taekwoon’s shoulder a couple of times. “Good boy,” she said. “We’re all glad to hear it. This child needs taking care of, more often than not. See if you can’t get some proper meals in him.”

“Will do,” Taekwoon agreed, even as Hakyeon dragged him out of there as fast as possible.

When they were out on the street, Taekwoon’s arm still around him, his body bracing Hakyeon against some of the cold, Hakyeon muttered, “God, that was embarrassing.”

Taekwoon pulled him a little closer, unmindful of the fact that they were in public, if not a very populated area. “Why?” he asked. “She seems to care about you.”

“They’re always mothering me, the whole lot of them,” Hakyeon retorted. “I don’t need it, and it doesn’t...feel right.”

Taekwoon was quiet, clearly hearing the things that Hakyeon hadn’t said. It didn’t feel right because the woman who was supposed to be mothering him was lying motionless in a hospital bed, and no matter what anyone said he couldn’t help but feel that he’d had a hand in putting her there. He’d gotten used to carrying the burden alone. It was strange to know that Taekwoon was holding a part of it now.

They didn’t speak again until they were on the bus, and then it was a conversation about what kind of food they wanted for lunch. Hakyeon felt the tension that had built up in his shoulders slowly leeching out and could only be grateful for Taekwoon.

It had been a long time since he’d had anyone that he let himself lean on that way.

–

The way Hakyeon had spoken about his apartment, Taekwoon had expected it to be infested with bugs and with visible mold on the walls. Instead it was on the small side, with worn carpet in the living room and a water stain on the kitchen ceiling. The couch in the living room had holes worn through it in places and the rest was a dirty, faded floral pattern uglier than anything Taekwoon had ever seen before.

But it was warm, and there were little touches here and there that made it feel like a home – a throw pillow with a Star Trek quote on it, the line of mismatched mugs on hooks on the wall above the sink, and amusingly, a poster with Taekwoon’s face on it hanging above the TV.

Hakyeon caught him chuckling at it and his ears went red. “That was Jaehwan’s doing,” he mumbled. “He said Sanghyuk was getting creeped out having you watch him sleep all the time and made him get rid of some of his posters.”

“It’s cute,” Taekwoon insisted, and got punched in the shoulder for his trouble. But it was barely hard enough to hurt, so he caught Hakyeon’s arm and pulled him in for a hug. It was so easy, to hook his chin over Hakyeon’s shoulder and sway them side to side. Easy like he’d been doing it for entire lifetimes. And maybe he had; who was to know whether reincarnation was real – whether, perhaps, he and Hakyeon had been doing some variation of this dance for a hundred lifetimes.

“ _You’re_ cute,” Hakyeon muttered, with the tone of an insult even though it was anything but.

Footsteps from the hallway, and then a deep voice saying, “Um, hi?”

Taekwoon looked up to see a man standing there, staring at them like he’d never seen a human being before.

“Hongbin!” Hakyeon said, stepping out of Taekwoon’s arms to gesture in his general direction instead. “This is Taekwoon.”

“I know who he is,” Hongbin said. He walked over to them, stood right in front of Taekwoon like he was squaring him up, and said, “I hope you know that if you hurt Hakyeon, I’m obligated to murder you in as grisly a way as I can come up with.”

Taekwoon took that in stride. From the things that Hakyeon had said, he hadn’t been quite certain what to expect of Hongbin. It had been half mischievous casual friend and half fiercely protective brother who would do literally anything for Hakyeon. Now that Taekwoon had met him, he was going to have to settle firmly on the latter.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Taekwoon told him mildly, and watched Hongbin’s eyes light with just a fraction more respect.

Hakyeon interrupted before things could get tense or awkward, asking, “Something to drink? I can make coffee.”

“You hate coffee,” Taekwoon retorted, his eyes flicking automatically to Hakyeon, watching him flit into the tiny kitchen area to start filling the coffee pot.

“I was offering it to _you_ , dingus,” Hakyeon said, voice lilting as he glanced over to level Taekwoon with a teasing look.

If it made Taekwoon’s heart skip a beat, that was entirely understandable. He couldn’t be held accountable for his natural reactions to his soulmate. “I would love a cup of coffee,” he said, going to join Hakyeon in the kitchen, stopping short of wrapping around him again and settling for leaning against the counter by his hip.

Hongbin was watching them seriously, but Taekwoon pretended he didn’t see. Instead, he chuckled as Hakyeon pulled down a mug that said _‘World’s #1 Aunt’_ and asked, “Are you really?”

Hakyeon blinked at him. “Sorry, what?”

Taekwoon nodded slowly at the cup in his hand and Hakyeon had to look down and stare at it for several moments longer than it really warranted before he said, “Oh!” He laughed, and it made Taekwoon laugh too. “Thrift stores, man. This mug cost like forty cents.”

“I like it,” Taekwoon decided. “Your place is so much more...personal than mine. It feels like people actually live here.”

“People do live here,” Hakyeon pointed out, gesturing around at their (frankly kind of messy) surroundings. “What, does your mansion not have dirty dishes in the sink at all times and three weeks’ worth of crumbs ground into the carpet?”

Taekwoon shook his head. “I have a cleaning lady who comes to my apartment once a week, and an interior decorator chose all of the dishes and furniture. The recording studio is more home than my house is.”

Hakyeon’s eyes went soft and he leaned into Taekwoon’s space, clearly about to say something more, when Hongbin finally cleared his throat and interrupted them again.

“Sorry,” he said when they glanced over. “Just thought I should warn you that JaeHyuk are coming over and they’ll be here in five, assuming they didn’t get distracted making out in the car again.”

Hakyeon winced, and looked to Taekwoon apologetically. “Sorry,” he murmured. “You don’t mind, do you? They’re close friends.”

“Then I should meet them,” Taekwoon agreed. He didn’t even have to think about it, and for him that was...strange.

Hakyeon leaned his forehead against Taekwoon’s shoulder for just a moment and breathed, “Thank you,” like Taekwoon had given him a huge gift. And Taekwoon couldn’t bear to think that something so small was such a blessing for Hakyeon. He wanted to wrap him up and surround him in comfort and warmth and everything good and make sure that he never had to suffer again.

But he could also tell, just from the few hours that they’d spent together, that Hakyeon was stubborn. Even as he’d spoken of his struggles it had been clear that he was holding things back. And Taekwoon wouldn’t pry, he wouldn’t push in a place where he wasn’t welcome yet, but everything in him was screaming that whatever it was that was hurting Hakyeon, he needed to make it stop. It was like a physical ache in his chest, he felt it so strongly.

What he could have was the closeness that Hakyeon had so willingly offered, and he readily curled an arm around Hakyeon’s waist, tugged him close and brushed a brave kiss against Hakyeon’s hair, not sure it was allowed yet but so desperate to be near him, to comfort him in any way he knew how.

Hakyeon just shuddered and settled into his hold, and Taekwoon felt as though a part of his soul was slotting into place, everything that he’d hoped it would be and more.

The coffee pot sputtered as it finished brewing, but Hakyeon took another moment more to start moving again, and when he did it was with a glance of a kiss brushed against Taekwoon’s shoulder, so brief and light that it could have merely been an accident. But the way he ducked his head and wouldn’t meet Taekwoon’s eyes afterwards said that it was intentional, and Taekwoon stored it up in his heart with all the rest to tide him over in the time when they would have to be apart.

They hadn’t talked about it yet, the fact that in another day he would be leaving town, off to finish the second half of his concert tour. And he hadn’t talked to Wonshik about the vacation that they’d been planning, whether they would still go now that Taekwoon had found Hakyeon.

Everything in him wanted to ask Hakyeon to drop everything and come on the tour with him, to come along to Greece while he was at it, no matter how much that might hurt Wonshik in the process. But Taekwoon knew how greedy that was, how selfish. He couldn’t ask Hakyeon to leave his job, his friends, his _mother_ for that long.

They’d only known each other a day. There would be time for long vacations and days at a time spent together, but he had to have patience. They had an entire lifetime to figure things out, to settle into some sort of pattern.

There was a knock at the door and Hongbin hauled himself off the couch where he’d settled with his phone, already yelling, “Took you long enough! If you were giving Jaehwan a BJ in the car again, Han Sanghyuk, I swear I’ll–” He cut off suddenly as the door swung open and then was just as abruptly on his knees clutching the sides of his head.

Wonshik stood on the other side, a plastic bag bearing the name of a Chinese restaurant in each hand, and he just stood there staring at Hongbin, saying, “Oh my god. Oh my _god._ _Oh my god_ ,” over and over again.

Taekwoon was about to ask what the hell was going on when Wonshik practically dumped the bags of takeout to the side so he could kneel in front of Hongbin. “Are you okay?” he asked, reaching out and then hissing and flinching back as soon as his hands came in contact with Hongbin’s shoulders.

Hongbin looked up at him, and Taekwoon couldn’t see his face but he could hear him laugh, wet and kind of manic-sounding, and then he told Wonshik, “That is the _ugliest_ shirt I have ever seen.”

Wonshik didn’t even seem to have the presence of mind to be offended, which was odd, but he looked down at himself and said, “Oh my god, you’re right.” He was wearing a shirt made of _four different colors of plaid_ , so it wasn’t like Hongbin was wrong.

“Hongbin?” Hakyeon asked, wary and worried and looking ready to throw himself across the room to help his friend.

“No wonder you were so goddamn insufferable, Hakyeon,” Hongbin choked out, his voice rough and even lower than it had been before. “God, how do you people even _see_ like this? I feel like I’m going to go blind.”

Taekwoon’s breath caught.

“Wonshik?” Taekwoon asked, taking a step forward, hardly believing what was happening in front of him. He had to have misread the situation, right?

Wonshik looked up at him and his eyes were full of tears, the big crybaby. He looked up at Taekwoon and he said, “Sorry, hyung.” Taekwoon felt his heart seize, because Wonshik rarely spoke Korean around Taekwoon, rarely spoke it around anyone but his parents. “I think I was wrong, a little bit. When I saw you the first time I thought the world was the most colorful it could possibly be, but. This is _blinding_.”

“Why are we all sitting in the doorway?” Jaehwan (Taekwoon recognized him from the night before) asked, stepping around and _over_ Wonshik to get into the room. “Ooh, Chinese food!” He scooped up the plastic bags on his way past, took them to the kitchen island and started rummaging through them.

There was another young man standing in the doorway, tall and gangly, looking like he hadn’t quite grown into his limbs or out of the childish softness of his face. He sighed, but there was a wry smile on his mouth and he watched Jaehwan with clear affection in his eyes. This must be Sanghyuk, then.

Jaehwan, standing only a few feet away, suddenly looked up at Taekwoon, chopsticks full of chicken lo mein frozen in midair. He smiled slowly, giving Taekwoon an unfortunately familiar once-over, and then said, “Hi.”

“ _No_ ,” Hakyeon snapped, kicking at Jaehwan’s ankle. “You have a fiancé. Leave Taekwoon alone.”

“Mm,” Jaehwan hummed, setting the takeout box on the counter and stalking forward with an unnerving smirk curling his lips. “Hyukkie wouldn’t mind, I’m sure.”

He was snagged by the ear and pulled backwards, and Sanghyuk growled, “Like hell I would. You can look, but nobody touches you but me.”

Jaehwan sighed as though very put-upon and crossed his arms with a pout.

“What did we talk about?” Sanghyuk asked, rather pointedly.

Another huff, but Jaehwan obediently recited, “Fantasies are one thing, but you’re my reality.”

Sanghyuk beamed at him and tugged him forward by the ears to kiss him squarely. “Exactly. I love you, but I’d hate to have to eviscerate you before we’re even married.”

“I love you too,” Jaehwan said, and then returned to the food with a flounce like nothing had even happened.

Sanghyuk stuck his thumbs in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Sorry about him,” he said. “He was absent the day god handed out consciences.”

“ _Was not!_ ” Jaehwan screeched, making everyone in the immediate vicinity wince – except for Wonshik and Hongbin, still knelt on the floor but now with their foreheads pressed together and seemingly off in their own little world.

“Case in point,” Hakyeon murmured, and then played innocent when Jaehwan turned a suspicious glare on him. The effect was rather ruined by the long clump of noodles hanging from Jaehwan’s mouth.

Sanghyuk fell in beside his fiancé, opening little paper boxes until he found something he liked, and Hakyeon tucked himself into Taekwoon’s side. He leaned his forehead against Taekwoon’s temple and said, “Sorry about them. They’re...kind of always like this.”

Taekwoon felt himself smiling. “No,” he said, “it’s fine. Kind of nice, actually. I’ve just had Wonshik and Shinwoo for a long time.”

He could feel Hakyeon smiling as well as his lips pressed to Taekwoon’s cheek. “Thank you. For rolling with the punches like this and for being beside me and just...for being my soulmate,” Hakyeon said.

“I’d do a lot more,” Taekwoon said, not even having to consider it. “I’d do anything for you, Hakyeon.”

“We’ve only known each other a day,” Hakyeon said, clearly unable to help the giddy little giggle that bubbled out of him.

Taekwoon shrugged, hummed an agreement. “Doesn’t feel like it,” he said. “Feels like it’s been...centuries. Maybe longer.”

“Who knew my soulmate would be such a goddamn romantic,” Hakyeon tried to complain.

But from the kitchen island Jaehwan retorted, “You and your huge fucking collection of romance novels, you hypocritical loser.”

Hakyeon stuck his tongue out at Jaehwan and then tugged Taekwoon over to get some food before the others ate it all, and the room descended into good-natured bickering.

“Hey, Taekwoon,” Wonshik said, as he and Hongbin finally got up and shut the door and came to join them. They were holding hands like they didn’t want to let go and Taekwoon could hardly blame them. “About that vacation we were planning.”

“We’re not going, are we?” Taekwoon asked, wry. He had thought maybe they still would, when it was just him who’d found his soulmate, but now that Wonshik had found his as well….

“Actually, I was thinking we could all go,” Wonshik said, surprising him.

Jaehwan’s head popped up and he asked, “Us too?”

Wonshik blinked at him like he’d never seen him before. “Sorry, who are you?”

Brief introductions were made, and at their conclusion Wonshik shrugged. “I don’t see why not,” he said. “We were talking about renting a house anyway. It won’t be that hard to get one large enough for the six of us. And it might be good for all of us to get away for a week or two, give our soulbonds time to settle.”

Hakyeon tugged on Taekwoon’s sleeve. The space between his eyebrows was pinched, his mouth turned down in a way that Taekwoon was quickly learning had to do with money concerns.

“I’ll cover the trip,” Taekwoon told him, unable to resist settling a hand on the middle of his back.

“That’s a lot of time off though,” Hakyeon pointed out. He didn’t say, ‘ _And a lot of time away from my mom,’_ but Taekwoon heard it anyway. The dark circles beneath his eyes seemed more pronounced than they had earlier, and Taekwoon realized with a jolt that Hakyeon was probably used to sleeping at this hour.

“We’ll figure it out later, okay?” Taekwoon suggested, rubbing slow circles between Hakyeon’s shoulder blades. He felt Hakyeon lean into his touch and could almost sense the weariness there. How long had Hakyeon been carrying everything by himself? “You should eat and get some sleep. You have to work tonight, right?”

“Don’t want to,” Hakyeon muttered, but he reached for the nearest takeout box and started to shovel fried rice into his mouth, and Taekwoon didn’t bother to ask which thing he meant.

As he looked up, reaching for his own food, Taekwoon found Hongbin and Jaehwan both watching him consideringly. When he caught their eyes, Hongbin just nodded once and looked away, and Jaehwan gave him a bright, cheerful smile. Apparently he had their approval then. That was...a relief that he hadn’t known he needed.

All he wanted was to take care of Hakyeon, to stay beside him and be a...a partner to him. If his heart had its way, he’d be putting a ring on Hakyeon’s finger tomorrow, but he knew they both needed more time than that.

Everything would work out. They just had to be patient.

–

Hakyeon woke to not-quite-darkness surrounding him and warmth along his side. His head was pillowed on a firm thigh, his arm wrapped around the knee below it, and Taekwoon’s long fingers were sifting slowly through his hair.

He regretted the loss of that hand as soon as he started to sit up and it fell away, but he tucked himself into Taekwoon’s side, pressed a kiss to his cheek, and whispered, “Hi.”

Taekwoon looked away from his phone, and Hakyeon caught a glance of a Twitter dashboard before he was setting it aside entirely to turn and press his forehead against Hakyeon’s. “Hello,” Taekwoon said, his voice just as soft. “Did you sleep well?”

“Better than I have in months,” Hakyeon admitted. For once he’d been able to let his worries rest along with his weary body. He knew it wouldn’t last, but he was grateful for the break anyway. “Thanks for staying.”

Taekwoon made an amused noise just short of an actual laugh. “Don’t thank me,” he said. “My reasons were entirely selfish.”

Hakyeon let out a little laugh of his own. “I’m not opposed to that. I’m just glad you’re here. I think if I’d woken up alone I would have thought this entire day was a dream.”

“It wasn’t,” Taekwoon insisted. His fingers found their way back into Hakyeon’s hair, and he was finding that he liked them there. Taekwoon’s touch was gentle but it made him feel grounded, somehow. “I’m not a dream.”

“You’re not,” Hakyeon concurred, feeling a bit giddy. He glanced down at Taekwoon’s mouth, barely visible in the faint glow from his phone, and didn’t mean to lick his own lips.

It made Taekwoon’s gaze flicker down as well, and then the next thing Hakyeon knew they were kissing. He wasn’t sure who had actually initiated it, but it didn’t really matter. They were both clearly on board, and Taekwoon was pulling him closer with a broad hand on his back, and Hakyeon was framing Taekwoon’s face with his own fingers and they kissed and kissed until they were both breathless.

When Hakyeon pulled back a bit, panting, and dropped his forehead against Taekwoon’s again, it was with a very self-satisfied smile on his face. He couldn’t help it.

“I don’t want to leave,” Taekwoon said. He hissed it through clenched teeth like he couldn’t even bear the words, the thought of it.

“But there are seven weeks left in your concert tour,” Hakyeon realized blearily. Seven weeks apart, with Hakyeon here alone, working and visiting his mother and not sleeping enough like he always did, and with Taekwoon gallivanting across the country, singing for other people. _Doing his job too_ , Hakyeon reminded himself, lest he forget that Taekwoon’s voice was not all for him, soulmates or no.

“If I could skip out on it I would,” Taekwoon told him. And Hakyeon could hear the absolute truth there, the aching, breaking sound of his heart as he even considered it.

So he shook his head, pressed another kiss to Taekwoon’s swollen lips, and said, “No. You have a duty to your fans too. You made a promise and you can’t go back on it.” He hesitated, clutched at Taekwoon’s shirt with one hand because part of him couldn’t bear to let go, and added, “Just come back to me after? So we can figure this out?”

Taekwoon nodded, their foreheads brushing. “I’ll always come back to you,” he promised, and Hakyeon knew it was true.

–

Taekwoon sat down next to Shinwoo on the bus and told him, “I need you to look into recording studio locations.”

Shinwoo blinked at him in that way he always did when Taekwoon made completely reasonable requests, and said, “I thought you liked your studio?”

“I do,” Taekwoon said, shrugging. “But commuting from Iowa all the way back to LA all the time is a bit far, so.”

Rubbing the space between his eyebrows like he was getting another of his migraines, Shinwoo muttered, “Dare I ask why you’ll be living in Iowa?”

Taekwoon looked down at his phone, uploaded the selfie he’d taken in front of the last concert venue to Instagram, and said, “Well, my soulmate is there, so I thought I’d buy a house.”

“Hey, mine is too!” Wonshik put in from across the aisle. “Can we go halfsies? We could get a really big place and just build a studio in the basement or something.”

They started discussing the merits of that over a free-standing studio, and Taekwoon ignored Shinwoo’s pointed sighs and muttering about quitting his job to become a monk. He wasn’t going to go through with it anyway; as much as he complained about Taekwoon, he still liked him the best of any singer he’d ever represented and would do pretty much anything for him.

And Taekwoon was too happy to let anything worry him anyway. He’d convinced Hakyeon to (grudgingly) agree to let him pay for one of those grocery delivery services for him, and the day after he left he’d had a box of chocolates and a Starbucks gift card sent to Hakyeon’s door.

In response, Hakyeon had called to tell him _exactly what he was going to do to him_ for that. And then, when Taekwoon had sheepishly apologized and explained that he’d only wanted to surprise him with something special, he had explained, in detail, exactly what he would do to him the next time they were together.

It was unfortunate that Taekwoon had been on a bus with about thirty other people at the time, because he’d barely been able to respond. But he’d promised himself that he would return the favor somehow, hopefully while alone in a hotel room next time.

He couldn’t wait to get back to Hakyeon’s side. He’d already had his plane ticket changed, his flight from New York back to LA being rerouted to drop him off in Iowa instead. Just a few more weeks on the road, doing concerts in every big city they passed, and then Taekwoon would be with his soulmate again.

Wonshik smiled at him, squeezed his arm when Taekwoon scooted back across the aisle to sit beside him instead of bothering Shinwoo anymore, and Taekwoon knew that the two of them would be okay too. They’d always been best friends, and Wonshik having another soulmate hadn’t changed that. He was still Wonshik’s soulmate, and in some ways, Taekwoon thought, Wonshik was his too.

–

Hakyeon hadn’t been on an airplane since the school dance team had made it to regionals his junior year of college. His heart was fluttering in his chest and he glanced out the window again, staring out at the tarmac as it began to fly by.

Beside him, Taekwoon laid a hand over his and asked, “You okay?”

Hakyeon nodded as he felt the plane leave the ground and breathed, “Yeah.” He looked at Taekwoon and couldn’t help the smile that spread his lips. “Yeah, I’m amazing.”

After all, he’d just been offered a job at the Natural History Museum, making almost twice as much as he had been, with the added benefits of regular hours and health insurance that he could add his mother to. He’d put in his notice at Walmart just a few days ago, and Taekwoon was (temporarily, he swore) loaning him the money to cover his bills until he got his first paycheck.

And he was on an airplane on his way to Greece, with his soulmate beside him and his best friends a few rows back, and they’d be spending over a week on the beach, eating good food and not worrying about anything.

He’d asked the nurses to keep an extra-close eye on his mother while he was gone, had left a copy of her favorite book and an mp3 player full of Taekwoon’s music on her nightstand, and they had all patted his hands and promised to call if anything at all changed.

He was still anxious, leaving her behind even for this long, but as much as he complained about the staff there mothering him, at least he knew they cared. He trusted them to have his mother’s best interests at heart.

Still, he squeezed Taekwoon’s hand and turned his eyes back to the window and couldn’t help but think of how much his mother would have enjoyed this. She always did like flying.

–

Hakyeon was...vibrant, on the beach. The bright sunlight glinted off his hair and made his skin glow and Taekwoon was completely besotted. He laughed when a moment of inattention caused Hakyeon to splash him threateningly and then started to drag him down into the water, and he managed to turn the tables and get Hakyeon completely drenched instead.

He looked a bit like a sad puppy, and Taekwoon just brushed his wet hair back from his eyes and kissed him.

“You’re lucky I love you,” Hakyeon said warningly, but there was no bite to it, and it was far too easy to distract him with kisses.

“EW! Mom and Dad are being _gross_!” Jaehwan screeched, splashing water in their direction, but he was far enough away that they only got spattered by a handful of droplets.

Hakyeon gave him the finger as he dropped one last kiss to Taekwoon’s mouth and then pulled away. “You’re one to talk. You and Hyuk have _literally_ gone at it with other people in the room. I think you were _both_ absent the day they were handing out basic human decency.”

Jaehwan yelled, “Hey! I resemble that remark!” but then Hongbin tackled him from behind and he got distracted trying not to drown in waist-deep water.

“Hey, Taekwoon!” Sanghyuk called from the beach, completely ignoring his fiancé’s cries for help. “Your phone’s been ringing. I think it might be important?”

Considering Taekwoon only gave that number to a very small circle of people, he was inclined to agree. He released his grip on Hakyeon’s waist and waded towards the shore, but he felt his soulmate follow him anyway. It was just as well – Sanghyuk and Wonshik had gone on a food run and they could probably use help divvying things up.

He wiped his hands idly against the towel he’d laid out on the beach before snatching up his phone as it started to ring again. The number made his heart clench, and he answered, “This is Jung Taekwoon.”

“Hi Taekwoon, honey,” Grace said over the line. “I’m sorry to call so incessantly. I know you must be enjoying your vacation, but I have some news that I thought Hakyeon might like to hear sooner rather than later.”

Taekwoon swallowed thickly, but he lifted his head and caught Hakyeon’s eye, and just like that Hakyeon was at his side, arm around his waist and lifting a questioning eyebrow. Taekwoon handed the phone over, murmured, “It’s Grace,” and watched Hakyeon’s face go stony with suppressed emotion.

They’d only gotten three really good days in Greece, but if something had happened and Taekwoon had to get them on a plane home today, he would do it.

“Hi Grace, what’s up?” Hakyeon asked, his voice cheerier than his face. He was silent for a while, listening, and then his jaw slowly dropped. He pressed a hand over his mouth and let out a noise that Taekwoon thought was a silenced scream.

Taekwoon was immediately on alert, reaching for him, ready to do whatever it took to make it better.

And then Hakyeon’s face softened, his eyes filled with tears, and he murmured, “Hi, Mom.”

His knees gave out and he sunk to the ground, and Taekwoon followed him the same way he’d follow him anywhere. He wrapped Hakyeon in his arms, curled around him until Hakyeon was in his lap with his head tucked beneath his chin, and held him tight.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Hakyeon said. He was choking on tears, Taekwoon could tell just from the timbre of his voice, but he was so – almost unbearably – happy. “I’m in Greece right now, but I can get the first flight home. With some friends, and my boyfriend. Are you sure? Mom, Dad is...oh.” He swallowed thickly, audible even over the crash of the ocean. “You’ll be okay?” he asked softly. “I’ll be home in a week.”

Taekwoon waited patiently while Hakyeon spoke with his mother. He wouldn’t cut this moment short for anything – and especially not for all the international calling charges in the world.

She was awake. She was awake and lucid and telling Hakyeon to stay in Greece because they had time now. When he got home he would undoubtedly be by her side for every waking moment, for as long as he could. Taekwoon wouldn’t blame him.

When he did finally hang up, Taekwoon asked, “Are you okay?”

Hakyeon looked at him like he was an idiot, even while scrubbing the tear tracks from his face. “Of course I am,” he retorted. “My mother is awake.”

“What, for real?” Hongbin put in, pausing with a plastic forkful of food halfway to his mouth. “Hakyeon, that’s...oh my god.”

Taekwoon rubbed Hakyeon’s back, and offered, “I can get us tickets home, if you want to go see her.”

But Hakyeon shook his head. “She made me promise to stay. She said...that she’ll be there when I get back. That we can catch up then, but she doesn’t want me to miss out on this experience just because she has bad timing.” He laughed a little, somewhere between exasperated and wondering. “God, Taekwoon, she’s _awake_. It’s been...it’s been _three years_. The doctors had basically given up on her.”

“But you never did,” Jaehwan said. He knelt in the sand to their right and gripped Hakyeon’s arm. “All this time you’ve believed that she would wake up. You’ve been working for this, Hakyeon. But maybe now you won’t have to work so hard.”

Taekwoon hummed his agreement, and Hakyeon murmured, “Maybe you’re right.” He glanced up at Taekwoon, smile bright and unhindered by the worries that used to drag it down. “Maybe I can finally let myself just be happy.”

That was, for certain, a sentiment that Taekwoon could get behind.

–

Hakyeon burst into the room without knocking and threw a balled-up pair of socks at Taekwoon’s startled face. The garment bag that was dangling from his fingers he laid more gently over an extra chair.

Taekwoon rotated his chair slowly away from his keyboard, rubbed his face, and asked, “What time is it?”

“Almost ten,” Hakyeon told him. “You need to get dressed so we can go. Generally you’re supposed to be early to weddings.”

“Right,” Taekwoon mumbled, and then stared at the pair of socks in his lap for far longer than was necessary.

Hakyeon sighed heavily and reminded him, “They go on your feet.”

It took another moment, but eventually Taekwoon unrolled them and started to pull them on.

Hakyeon snorted. “When did you sneak out of bed last night?” he asked. “I didn’t even hear you leave.”

“Sorry,” Taekwoon said, standing to unzip the garment bag and start changing into his suit. Black, with satin lapels, exactly like the one that Hakyeon was already wearing. “I couldn’t sleep so I was watching you and I just...suddenly felt inspiration strike.”

“Oh my god, you wrote me another cheesy love song, didn’t you?” Hakyeon asked, grinning wickedly and coming up behind Taekwoon to drop a kiss to his newly-bared shoulder.

Taekwoon reached back to pinch the first part of Hakyeon he could find, ended up just getting fabric, and gave up. “You love it when I write you songs.”

Hakyeon gave him another kiss and then stepped away so he could finish getting dressed, and admitted, “I do. That doesn’t mean I won’t give you shit every time you do it. Honestly I’m surprised it took your fans so long to figure out that we’re dating.”

“Engaged,” Taekwoon corrected automatically. He turned around as he buttoned his shirt, apparently solely so he could lift an eyebrow at Hakyeon as though he’d actually _forgotten_.

“Yes, fine, same thing,” Hakyeon retorted, wiggling the fingers of his left hand at Taekwoon and making his engagement ring sparkle. It had cost almost as much as a car and he couldn’t even be mad about it because there was a matching one on Taekwoon’s hand that Hakyeon had paid for himself with the bonus he got when he was promoted. “I’m just glad they were too busy squealing about how cute we are to get mad that they no longer had any chance with you.”

Taekwoon paused with his shirt collar flipped up and his tie loose around his neck to pull Hakyeon into his arms and kiss him soundly. “They never had any chance,” he said. “It was always going to be you.”

“You big sap,” Hakyeon complained, but he kissed Taekwoon again before he wriggled out of his arms. “Seriously though, finish getting dressed. Mom’s waiting.”

Taekwoon sighed heavily but went back to carefully subduing his tie, and Hakyeon took the opportunity to smooth his own jacket down again and slip back out of the studio.

He found his mother in the living room, lounging in one of the armchairs like a queen on her throne, dressed in silk and diamonds the way she had always deserved.

“You look amazing,” Hakyeon told her, leaning down to brush a kiss against the rise of her cheekbone, and she laughed.

“My sweet boy, always flattering me,” she murmured.

Hakyeon shook his head and perched on the arm of her chair. “It’s not flattery if it’s true,” he insisted. And it was. She was so strong and beautiful, had come so far in the two years since she’d woken from her coma. And Hakyeon was so very grateful for everything that she was. Even if it was sometimes embarrassing, as part of a newly engaged couple, to live with his mother.

At least the house was large.

Taekwoon finally made his way up the stairs, fully dressed but with his dark hair feathered messily over his forehead.

Hakyeon huffed affectionately and went over to fix it for him, finger-combing the unruly strands into submission and then kissing the smile Taekwoon gave him. “Hopeless,” he said, but his tone was too warm to even pretend at exasperation.

Taekwoon just smiled wider and pressed one broad palm into Hakyeon’s lower back to reel him in for more kisses. It was far too easy to get lost in it, to start breathing in Taekwoon’s scent and tasting his mouth and wanting more than they had time for. He looked far too good in a suit for Hakyeon’s sanity, after all.

“Don’t mind me,” Hakyeon’s mother said, more loudly than was warranted. “We have a wedding to get to, but I’ll just sit here and wait until you’ve finished defiling my son so that we can leave.”

Hakyeon made an offended noise and turned to glare at his mother. “You seem to have misunderstood. If anyone’s doing the defiling, it’s me.”

His mother just snorted at him, her eyes dancing. “Who said I was referring to you?” she asked. Just that, just seven words, but somehow Hakyeon couldn’t come up with a proper retort.

His face flaming, he muttered, “Let’s just go. Jaehwan will kill me if I’m late to his wedding.”

Taekwoon pinched his ass as he turned to shuffle out of the room, and from the way his mother cackled, she definitely saw.

–

“Wow, they’re disgustingly cute,” Hakyeon said, watching the newlyweds have their first dance.

It was a fair assessment, since they were less dancing and more just rocking side to side, noses brushing in little eskimo kisses pretty much constantly.

Across the table Hongbin snorted, and told Hakyeon, “Don’t pretend that you two won’t be just as bad at your wedding.”

“You’re one to talk, Lee Hongbin,” Hakyeon retorted at once, looking about ready to throw his cocktail at him. “You _eloped to Los Angeles_ without telling me!”

Hongbin grimaced, in spite of the kicked-puppy expression that Wonshik gave him immediately after. “We’re not married.”

“Not that I haven’t _tried_ –” Wonshik attempted to put in, but was interrupted before he could finish.

“And we’re not going to be anytime soon,” Hongbin added. His face hardened when Wonshik turned soulful eyes on him, and he seemed to barely notice. If Taekwoon didn’t know that the two of them had a very happy, loving relationship behind closed doors he would be seriously concerned about his best friend. “I don’t need a stupid party and a piece of paper to tell me what I already know.”

“Fine,” Hakyeon allowed, clearly not willing to get into _that_ argument again. Taekwoon patted his knee to thank him for sparing them all from that. “But you still moved halfway across the country without any warning. You _live in LA_ , Hongbin.”

“Hey, Silicon Valley, man!” Wonshik said, sounding...slightly too excited. And also wrong.

Hongbin just patted his hand, told him, “That’s San Francisco, baby,” and then turned a withering gaze on Hakyeon. “I haven’t slept in two weeks,” he said.

Hakyeon guffawed, loudly. Several older people – relatives of the newlyweds, Taekwoon thought – shushed him. “That’s what you get for taking a job at a startup. What are you even doing?”

“Listen, if I knew that I wouldn’t have been up for two weeks straight, okay,” Hongbin said, completely unrepentant.

Taekwoon sighed and turned his gaze back to the dance floor as the sappy slow song finally finished and something more upbeat started playing.

“Sucks to be you, man,” Hakyeon said, and then tugged on Taekwoon’s hand. “Come on, let’s go dance.”

Taekwoon went because he was a giant sucker, and because he couldn’t take his eyes off of Hakyeon. Even two years hadn’t been long enough for Taekwoon to get used to how gorgeous he was, and then Hakyeon had to go and _dye his hair_ and ever since Taekwoon’s eyes had been stuck firmly on his fiancé and nowhere else.

Which he supposed was the goal, but that didn’t make it any easier to handle the way the moon-pale strands contrasted with Hakyeon’s dark skin. He was glowing, always glowing these days with happiness and contentment and love.

Once, Taekwoon would have given anything to see Hakyeon this way. Now, he would give anything to keep him.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/PhantomFlutist) if you want to be informed the next time I'm accepting requests, or if you want sporadic and completely random floods of updates on my writing, the fandom thing I'm obsessed with this week, or occasionally personal stuff. Idk it's kind of a mixed bag with me, but you're welcome to come join and talk to me if you want. Mention one thing about my fic and watch me talk your ear off. Seriously.


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